Not for nothing do the scorned
fall on their own sword
or, in this case, take the sharp and tapering
end of a horn to heart.
Love’s triangle, pin-prick sharp, now clouds
and beside its token gesture, martyrdom beckons.
All was equal, equilateral but not so now.
He no longer fights his corner.
He bares the body, bares the head,
becomes the colour of quicksilver
in the quicksand of a cell
but must be seen to suffer
so has the wall’s one scar open;
has it neat and shapely;
has it as a portal to his pain,
its point arrowing to his showy surrender.
Mark Sheeky’s Oil Painting: The Death Of Man (available for purchase)
