Oscar Bray, Two: A Ghazal

Oscar Bray

When the animals marched into the great Ark two by two, It was no grim procession: they frolicked, like us two.

Can’t follow you down downy beaches in Vanuatu, But we can still dance anywhere. Just count the beat, one, two.

A deathtrap wheeled by, our cat was crushed, whereto I asked how many lives were left and it cried twice for two.

People say that life is hard and others say “me too.” Work all day, cry all night over tea for two.

She stares at you repentantly, pathetic dead cartoon. How many others would stay with her? Only two?

After all the secrets I have shared, the promises you took, I ask for just three words and your pretty lips give two.

Tiger stripes adorn the arms with keloids like tattoos. Body turned to husk by choice that afternoon at two.

He speaks like an automaton, eyes flitting like a stooge. How many nights of horror? He holds fingers up. Two.

The streets were rife with bodies, some were ready for a tomb. Fists clenched for guns and chokeholds, bays for blotched blood in round two.

Wounds scraping the backbone force a stifled cry: et tu? They were like brothers once but there was just no room for two.

By the synapse ’neath the nerve of the enamel of a tooth, I lived but my heart skipped not one bold beat but two.

The mind I can calm, with jewels my body I’ll festoon, But it still won’t calm the conflict that defines and wrecks the two.

Cassandra Mitchell