Response to HD’s Fragment Sixty Eight

2

goddess slain pity

sweeps your smile

unfolding my glance upward

I break high beaten, crushed

though I have known

though I have known

you are in the arms

of someone much stronger than

I still see shadows

mar street corners jagged in places where

I know you still search for me in the rain

1

I know you can feel me breathing down the neck of a night like this

even where you are

even when death is no more than your eyes

and that stone of a throat

Do not pity me this

sighs lingering between

collarbone and shoulder

the violence of beauty in your palms

chance of

3

and sometimes

I am a shell shock of a woman

forgetting

intense

torture set from limbs

more terrible to embrace

than pride

watching

more painful

than