Thy Bed of Crimson Joy

Yellow skin, belly taut
and round – a lemon
of a man.  Doctor, he’d call,
I need a beer. We found a few,
one time, under his bed. His mother
sneaked them in, although she knew
beer had done in his liver, beer
would kill him. Doctor… One day,
I heard a different note, found him
struggling to sit up while dark blood
gushed from his throat.
He reached for me, eyes wide
as a child’s. I shouted, ran for help,
but all refused to come:
Nothing to save.
I found his breathing stilled,
a lemon on a crimson bed.

First published in Gargoyle, #65, 2016.