The Marked Stag

I remember us Your voice husked with passion Your eyes incredulously bright, wet, and near My will like crumbling dust It was so sudden and unexpected, your will To yield from the unimplored edge of fear And I quivering in the net of your affection O we quivered in the darkness and was still. You spoke of love with the tongue of an angel Penning me with stories that unwrapped your hurt To comfort you then I would have entered hell And break the spell of heaven and of earth. I remember us Daylight skipping my heart like a stag through green Of day. I swaddled me in love again And swallowed me in trust No blood scent tell I was just another game The stag is marked by callous whim to die Over the long years where we ran spilling joy Not knowing how the hunter sighted it for pain Nor that love was a skin you would shed, still serene Like the night when quivering you came. I heard you on the phone today, and did not cry To your say, "did I tell you I am wed?" My heart dessicated, for tears too dry Said "congratulations," and went to bed. So it was you left a trail Betraying me? You whose odor indented the grass And you did not even shout, "the Philistines are upon you," You left me where the knife prevailed Betrayal of what you said you stood for then Betrayal of the dream I told no Potipher's wife before The blood burn black upon the grass is upon you And still I would redeem at all cost A Samson blind and stumbling in the scorn of men. When the moon comes up and he takes your hand Will he look and see my shadow in your mind Or feel you quivering like a wind swirled sand Betrayal begins where the budding heart blooms blind.