22

A Midnight Heartbreak
Christopher Cassetty

Upon the Sun’s faint dying breath, as Twilight lies in sombre death,
do I descry the pallid Moon, so doleful, whole, so dismal, too;
and up above the clouds so high, she weeps agleam her tears of  white,
a crying sight so full of  woe, wherein her sins the Night bestows.
A dream beseems this dreary Night, for all it crawls with things of  fright:
the gothic moth in search of  gore; the mystic witch who reads of  lore;
as well, her spell, the peccant bane; and last, the ghast, of  vile disdain.
And I, thereby, am last to go, to cry whereby the Moon doth glow.

To cry, and die, am I so tempt’, as dreams appease the Night’s contempt,
and wherefore werewolves turn to howl, whereby the nightly Moon befouls
the midnight grid of  blazing stars, our twain, ill-fated, broken hearts,
as werewolves share parts man and wolf, and rarely dares feel woe the wolf. 
When only grown to don my fur, enthrall’d by all the Moon’s allure,
with teeth agleam from moonlit dreams—the ichor crying from my teeth—
as well, the knell before the sheep, my droning groan for more to eat,
beware the air so moon-kiss’d cold, … as werewolf  dare I favour wolf.