The pinch and sting of truth, combined with grace,
Effects to rouse me from self-immolation.
It's true I wished to turn, and hide my face
And give my dreams and passions a vacation.
It wasn't lust that made me go away.
It was a brand of fear, suspicion creeping
That soon or late my eyes would know a day
Whose dawn would demonstrate that love was sleeping,
Hibernating, comatose and rough.
I feel attraction, visceral and sweet.
I should deny....if made of sterner stuff,
I would abstain from lulling metric feet.
It seems that suddenly I am subsumed
In thoughts, desires, longings now exhumed.

I am, in truth, not her it is you seek,
She whose reclining thighs in gentle splay
Provide the solace which you crave, and speak
So surely to me, "There must be a way."
I cannot be the comfort of your age
Or hold and stroke your head when you are ill.
I will not raise my voice to you in rage
Or writhe beneath you in the heat. But still
There can be something innocent that's left
From your encounter with this recent whore
Who leaves her legions drained, confused, bereft
Of comfort, as she looks beyond for more.
The price you paid to try to love again
Merely consisted of this moment's pain.

We celebrate the darkness and the light
With joy. With all the pleasant-tasting things
Encountered on our journey, dark or bright.
We started with the simplest love, which brings
Delight and satisfaction for a while.
But as our nights have passed, we both have found
A deeper, darker, more intensive style.
(I love you more than when I was unbound.)
I love you with the passion of my soul
Which speaks to yours. I cannot now be free
Of you whose touch at last has made me whole.
(I'm yours, as all my days I've longed to be.)
You asked me, in this life, to be your slave--
My love, you are the healing dark I crave.

The fact is, dear one, many fondest truths
Change more quickly than you could believe
(Like autumn becomes winter...children, youths)
And what is dead and gone will not retrieve.
The stars themselves are motile. After years,
The shining, flashing pole star in the north
That shimmers through this atmosphere of tears
Will be called Vega. When you sally forth
In future--when she who is your fate's revealed,
No one will be more pleased for you than I.
This is not poesy, nor lust concealed.
I do not put you from me with a sigh.
What does not grow, and fruit, and flourish...dies...
And under love-stars, we know different ties.

The fact of your cruelty takes me by surprise...
The tension in your hands around my neck
The flash of sick, denied desire in your eyes.
I've moved on. You hate it. What the heck...
I've had one thousand sorrows in our time.
I have hated who I am for long enough.
This woman, newly free, commits no crime
In turning from you. Offering rebuff
To all the pain you promise, I proclaim
I am beyond your tool, your pawn, your fear.
For my own errors, I still live with shame,
And yes, your pointed verbal thrusts still spear...
But happiness and passion joyous found me,
Despite your efforts, clutching, for to drown me.

In all my life 'til now, there is just one...
My rescuer, who knew that deep inside
Where once had welled a crystal spring, in sun
There now were empty leaves whose words had died.
You reached from far away and touched my hand
And made me yours, and made me love again.
In glory, what we hadn't hoped or planned
We realized was meant since stars began.
And then, such words, as hadn't flowed for years
Were written as I tried to grasp the feeling
Of loving, being loved, of facing fears...
Of standing, so, before you, not concealing.
There is just one, forever, man as knight
Who loves me, freed me, and for whom I write.

~ Fall, '98 ... for Russell