I look at her,
All graceless, shameless beauty,
And I am again
Amazed that us two should
Have come together in the way we did,
Astounded that we swim in the same waters,
Awed that I get to walk in her world,
I, who started from the bottom up;
She, who started at the top, and,
Like Lucifer cast from Heaven,
f
e
l
l

Paradise Lost and Losing My Religion
Are sacred to her,
As am I,
But I don’t tell her
About the scars I count like stars
And call by name,
Nor do I mention the blood on her hands,
Mostly her own, mingled with that
Of us unlucky few.

She dances in the sun,
And I wish I could join her,
But fear stills my tongue
And I am silent still;
Silent, and silently suffering,
Tending to her wounds
But never to mine,
And wondering, as always,
When she will flit, fairy-like,
Into the arms
Of someone better than I.