You said that you came from Angel Dust
When I saw you emerge from mist,
Your hair was covered with spangles, and
Gold bangles dangled each wrist,
Your bare feet trampled the Autumn leaves
Whose gold reflected on high,
The rest of you, like some ancient rust,
That’s when I knew you’d die.

And then I awoke and saw you there
Asleep in our giant bed,
All thoughts of a gold goddess were fairly
Skittering from my head,
Your breath, it was long and laboured, and
Your hair, it was falling out,
With tufts of it on the pillow there
The chemo had left no doubt.

And all the love that I had for you
Poured out of my aching heart,
At least I knew that you loved me too,
You’d said we would never part,
But nobody told this grim disease
That came to you in a flood,
To desecrate your perfection, then
To end with you coughing blood.

You begged to me that I end it, that
I put out the final light,
That thing I loved, that I rend it, that
You wouldn’t put up a fight,
I wept as I kissed you one last time
Held on till I stopped your breath,
And felt you fall from me, after all
Through the final stages of death.

And then in the early morning as
I stood distraught by the bed,
I thought that I saw you rise again
Though I knew you were surely dead,
And I thought that you came from Angel Dust
When you wandered into the mist,
For your hair was covered with spangles, and
Gold bangles dangled each wrist.

David Lewis Paget