there's a point on the map when

doubts and desapir veer to meet

and idly parade nowhere down a

lonely slum of a one-way street

 

no compass charts this latitude

where time gross reality bends

for its a quarter of lifeless loss

the geography where love ends

 

I've drifted here so many times

its memories my endless bane

before me for I sense a reprise

I am sure I'm going there again

 

to a deep bog hydrated by tears

rife with dried sphagnum moss

thick-plated with stark debris of

betrayal, hate and other dross

 

stamp your feet and sink deeper

cries damped into misty echoes

her wayward perfume in the air

whatever gusts the wind blows

 

amid that morass she lingers on

what face and body yet me stain

touch and glance alike kiss this

banal irrigated hinterland again

 

no compass charts this latitude

where time gross reality bends

for its a quarter of lifeless loss,

the geography where love ends