Modern Romanticism

You’ve devised this remedy
out of anticipation,
dreading revision,
damning abruption.

Backwards you go,
while you look forward
at falling snow.

You entertain one more
futile second
to sense if stardust
is what descends,
bathing your footprints
in bright sheen.

It’s your method
to keep away
your torch.

You dropped it
on the steps ahead,
endangering hope.

All this, you allow
before your mirror of ice,
blending life with death,
dreading your flesh
for what it could be,
under mercy’s pledge.