The Swordsman

The cold katana cut my flesh today.
He gripped my pound of meat without a sound;
he ripped my chest and dropped it on the ground,
and murmured, worshipped, not a yard away.

I lingered, wavered, with the evening breeze,
which once so fresh, now stole a copper tone.
My murderer was one whom I had known:
the swordsman bent to death upon his knees.

I mourned my heart a minute, and was done --
my enemy had taken what was his,
and I had let him take it, truth be told,
for I would not be his next bastard son,
and I need not that heart with which to live --
then my katana swung, and left him cold.