How she must have written, dark
words on unmarked paper,
void of her haunted passions
til ink obscured its surface.
Tears, perhaps; or maybe
nothing but a pair of solemn eyes
scritching out a mantra fore
-warning the world of its horrors.

Death, like a welcome guest, crept
across the blotted snow, curling
its cold, steely grasp around all
it could reach.
Each reader, an unwilling witness
to some unpredicted tragedy,
felt the shiver of its unfolding
as she lapsed into her martyrdom.

Her silent grief
flowed unbidden from her torturer,
no more than human. A fallible victim
of their cursed love. The pure red blood
of the accuser coated his hands, til
they crumpled the pink papers
which tumbled through the years to land
at my eye, unlocking

the dirty black oil-pump.