The Man He Loved in the Dark
You left a last letter, as though a life could be explained, Once there was no life left to answer for its scars; You wrote of respectable faces walking in the sun, While you had learned to make your dwelling in the dark. You said the best of you was discarded long ago, And what remained had learned to live without a name; You could have carried on that way, as others do, Until my presence made you look at yourself again. Love was not a gentle light when it entered you; It stripped away the shelter of your compromises bare; The man you had accepted suddenly seemed strange, When you imagined how he might appear to me. You spoke of hands that had known too many women, And swore that mine would never feel their touch; Not from a lack of longing, but from something deeper- You thought your darkness would contaminate what you loved. You told me you had never wounded those beside you, That pain had often been something you endured; You wanted to change, to leave that life behind, But wantin...
