An Old Man in Great Trouble

The famished ermine trimming the patron's coat        was meant as an emblem of wealth.                        Is this the real-time sorrow                and how did Beurer bring it outon the patrician's face through brumal medieval afternoons                    when they sit near each other                    as still as two lemons,        fire thinned,          the stubborn oil paint thickening like an adolescent's neck.