For Benedict Wong
It has stilled to the rhythm of the elegy

the wave drums out against Coney Island, 

unquiet yearning like saudades in flesh

Wrathful Orpheus & cursed Daphne

these are now the only saints you understand 

Martyrdom withheld & you endure, languishing

at the apple tree, celestial garden a gilded cage

What you would give to descend 

to the land of the sybaritic sinners, where 

your beloved frolics at midnight 

in the bygone cathedral, wretchedly unaware, 

rare devotion in a brief body, preserved 

for another blessed thief, a lesser corporeal