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.