Love Lies Bleeding

By Michele Habel-Coffey

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Amaranthus Caudatus for Algernon

For Charlie

And for my Grace

Loves lies bleeding

Dying in the cold

Dying on the headstone

Of the long gone

And seldom mourned

I am Alice

In Charlie’s backyard

Down the foxhole I go

In search of better flowers

Of Lotus

And Lilac

And a pill to make me big again

The white rabbit

Runs beside the mouse

His jaws clamped upon

The Eglantine

The mouse, tangled in

Forget-Me-Not,

stumbles

Remaining in between

The Rabbit

and poor Alice

Poor, poor me

I am ever chasing

Ever fading

A Cheshire grin

Left upon

An aching memory

Forget the pill

Give me a potion

I shall tread until I drown

Exhausted

By the wheel

And intoxicated

by the Wormwood