Frozen instant, where bullet kisses skin. See their mouths open, see them half-turned and frozen. The world shudders away from this marriage of true minds; their eyes are closed, each familiar face shuttered tight. Their cameras fell silent blocks ago.

The house inside is empty. This moment, this long-delayed consummation, this bullet-bled osculation; a second stretches on, two, and it passes. Clouds pass out of a balmy winter’s sky: mare’s tails, the sign of changing weather. They will mouth ashes when they say your name, clasp at water when they search for reasons.

Let yourself relax. Warm these hands, beloved these long-forgotten faces. They will build your true memorial in the gap of years, in the dry arguments of lawyers, in an order from a judge. Let it go. You have found your entelechy in this moment.