Disclaimer: Since it's a poem this time, I thought I should rhyme: Bruckheimer, CSI Miami belongs to thee. (Wow, that was some spectacularly poor excuse for a beat pattern, and precisely why the poem itself is in blank verse)

This started out as an H/C drabble, and then when I needed a poem for creative writing I chopped up the partially completed draft and put it in poem form. My professor sweetly told me to ditch the first two stanzas. I politely rebelled, because as much as I tried to form new characters, this poem will always be Calleigh and Horatio, so I withdrew it from my portfolio and am now returning it to the place it belongs.

Be warned, I am still in a revising mood and may tweak the diction here and there.

"Two-Toned Sunshine"
She is an eternal optimist, seeking sunshine.
It's the only way to cope with this line of work:
Why she always gives her father another chance
Why she believes in the justice system even as it fails her yet again
Tomorrow means a cleansing dawn
And somewhere in the city, there are birthday parties and puppy kisses
Bringing smiles to the faces of others more innocent

His sunshine is worn and faded,
Discolored by twice as many years on the job.
He knows behind every child's smile lies another gruesome murder –
For every bouquet of flowers,
Another housewife perpetually dressed in black and blue.
Love is ephemeral, happiness fleeting.
Isn't it?

They shouldn't be together:
Logic and reason and every sense of decorum forbid it.
They spend a decade dancing
In a world made of metaphors
But never quite fall into step.

He gets married; she dates a string of guys who never had a chance.

Less sunshine than twilight by the time they're both alone again,
And her platinum strands owe their highlights to a bottle
(though still a fine compliment to the glimmer of something once afire).

It's there, long after the music stops, that the dance ends
Decorum be damned.
Love might be ephemeral, but so is life.