You wear a secret veil to no avail
A curtain over bays of gauzy pain
Of unadorned love betrayed
And naked promises made
Avowed
Never to be drawn again
Hooded clouds across the sun drift past
Casting masked shadows on your lawn;
A tenebrous gaze
In these dusky autumnal days
Recalled
Beneath a flutter of leaves forlorn
But purdah days shall fall away
Revealing us for what we are
For love obtrudes like a dictator
And our doubts seductive as a traitor
But still
We leave the screen ajar
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