morass

fate
        he calls it -
reviver of innocence standing knee-deep in a stagnant pool.

i laugh -
        holding out a tangle of branches
        increasing his confusion.

in a fiction
        desolate of undivided truths,
there is little enough to grasp -
i say
no sureness of hands
no surety of presence
        WHAT FATE ?
i shout -
        brushing away limbs of trees.

the occasional -
        he answers -
displayed in a sequence of visions,
deranged by a trickery of senses,
not to be mistaken for eventual truth

        he declares,
                clutching the branch,
                twisting his hands into knots of eloquence.

i laugh at his verbosity and hand him a dead rose.
        ( discrepancies -
        the decay of centuries traps our oblivion )

        and will it
i say
        grant immortality ?
        will it save you?

yes!
        he weeps.
i whisper .
                .
                . no.

petals drop
symmetry suspended in the legacy of death
        no fate
illusion
        no destiny
destruction

                i watch him
                        ( release the branch )
                                fall into pain.