when the perennial essential question I proposed,
a temperature taking surely,
a simple request re loving me, yes
it was a dueling pistol shot,
a returning, pressing, single firing
interrogatory of a burr of a bullet
"how"
she stood in weak opposition
she demurred, evaded, jooked,
pre-tensing with a faint, a feint,
a desperately disguised,
claiming of the fifth,
a refusal to self-incriminate,
with a childlike repetition
"unsure..."
but was she ever,
ever sure,
ever knowledgeable
for the poem was
"of the people, by the people, for the people,"
we, me, she,
of course, being "the people"
-
that our love
"shall not perish from the earth..."
this particular poem,
this particular address,
was about
the struggle to maintain
our union
-
"our unfinished task"
it was the
first shot and the
parting shot
it was the
warning shot,
mesmerizing,
metastasizing
into a
death shot
simultaneously
the poem was,
this poem
the acknowledgment,
of the beginning
of the
perhaps epilogue,
maybe even the commencement
of a eulogy
a breathewell,
a fare-thee-well of this,
as well,
one of his
happiest guises
writer of
*only love poetry