Memento Mori

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

The bitter curl of wine

Crawling up the curving glass

Bloodred on crystal

Thick and with

A sour taste

Memento mori

A still-life painted flat

In glistening oils

With silver goblets

And crystal decanters

And rotten fruit

And animal bones

Doffed with white

To gleam

By a long-dead painter’s hand

For even in the gossiping swirl

Of the city’s climbing elite

Remember — death is coming

Was a thing you framed

High above your mantel

And when you flopped

On a feathered couch

Ridged in velvet brocade

To stare

And swoon

You sighed.

Elsewhere

In the dark and damp

Of catacombs

Of churches

Couches made of human bone

Stretch under

Smiling chandeliers

And curved-hip vases

Memento mori

Lounging in a graveyard

On furniture made

From the bodies of the dead.

Remember — death is coming

Woven into horrors

Piecing up them all

As a comforting world

Where death is certainty

Of a better place

Instead of the gaping chasm

Of a dark, black background

Or a sunken eye socket

In a grinning skull.