the rot of desire

my wife-to-be, my young lover –
one banked hearth, one unattended fire.
Christ. The hot accelerant of drink.
The rot of desire.
And out, into the swinging dark,
a moon of mercury, lines of vitriol trees
and the loose earth that rises up,
drops on me, burying me,
night after night after night.

Robin Robertson, "Strindberg in Berlin"