In deathly quiet
she whispers to me—
Come,
feel the desolate,
the barren,
the free.
For she has no master
in this deep, empty place:
this frozen perplexity,
this void,
this grey, pallor’d face.
Pockmarked and blistered,
now glimmering gold—
fragile,
vulnerable,
unbearably cold.
She beckons to us
with callous disdain,
from the vast, empty chasm
that drives us insane.
We bow
and we bray
at her harsh, distant glare,
and utter sad songs
full of love and despair.
She waxes,
she wanes.
She hides her dark side
from inquisitive eyes
who would dare
to abide.
In the depths of her skirts,
in her sultry conceit,
in the sickle-festoon
of her heavenly seat—
garlands of gold
for languishing lovers.
She waits for us still,
in celestial covers.