Precious Things (Poetry)

Behind closed doors an old man sits
crooning to himself, his eyes
round as coins, he wets his lips,
unlocks his object of desire
with trembling hands and wheezing sighs
and gazes on her face. Old fires

unquenchable, his passion deep
and deathless, fuelled by avarice
for precious things, and when sleep
finds him nodding in the dawn,
she fills his aching heart’s abyss
with bloodless treasure. Love, stillborn,

haunts failing memory and tricks
his addled brain — denies how much
he schemed and plotted to get rich
at any price. Greed took hold —
corrupting with its Midas touch
and turned soft flesh to frigid gold.