To know one such as I know you,

To love in knowing, as I love

The passages of your soul; I do

Behold the abject beauty of

The intimate chambers found between

Your skin, yourself, and mine.

To others what remains unseen,

(All trust the kindness in your eyne

Without forbearance for the deep

Crevasses kindness in you formed)

Is mine to love, to bless, to keep.

 

To others, what is not performed —

The hardening of the world against

Your heart, guileless and bruised —

Is unimagined. Further, naught relents

For you, my morning star, suffused

With Achilles’ strength. And yet I sense

That all the Styx’s misery floods

Your broken body. It overbears

Your banks and mine; it mingles blood

And binds us even in our tears.

I place myself, by loving you,

Prostrate before the god of pain,

Accepting sorrows flying true

Like arrows, or fragrant spring rain.