Thirteenth Labour

I was given, grieving, to the wake of

some better day, still sore and holding

proof that Love had entered and gone,

and been generous and withholding.

I had seen those abscesses ruptured

and haemorrhaging reddish things

I didn’t know had come to raise

within me, and it was punishing.

And I hadn’t known time could grow such

branches, pierced and latticed through the heart

but should have, given how things

would demonstrate from the start.  

So, what of that magic of living

that, finally, emends us all to good

when we have been ugly? If I had those

infinite powers, then I would.

Still, no. That which is sickly,

no matter what false sheen lends an insight,

grows young to die quickly,

and succumbs to collapse with us still inside.

But I could have loved them forever-

I could reassemble them in my fists

and since they are weak, they are wont

to take root again and begin all over-

and in the callow valleys of such unhurried, soft, unburdened kiss,

I would carry for them water to perish over, and over,

and lived for this.