Houses of Decay

Fray, seen plainly in the facial lay:
a stray whisker here, an unlovely lump there:
fabled fortunes falling freely, and away
and downward is pulled the face,
loose flaps of skin sinking
limply toward the chin:

o unhealthy epiderm!
o weaver of Fate! champion of Faith!

Mine, his and all: we’ll all fall
eventually, our faces failing and then the traces of us,
disentigrating (down, down, down), done in by dozens
of dramas and doleful dirges drowning us in ugly afterthoughts.

O, if only, (birth until death); o,
if once, if never, but no and no
and (o,
f
o
r
e
v
e
r) no.