The Wish

I keep her weary ghost inside me.

“Oh, let me go,” I hear her crying.

“Deep in your dark you want to hide me

And so perpetuate my dying.

        I can’t undo

        The grief that you

Weep by the stone where I am lying.

        Oh, let me go.”

 

By work and women half distracted,

I endure the day and sleep at night

To watch her dying reenacted

When the faint dawn descends like twilight.

        How can I let

        This dream forget

Her white withdrawal from my sight,

        And let her go?

 

Her body while I watch grows smaller;

Her face recedes, her kiss is colder.

Watching her disappear, I call her

Again and again as I grow older

        While somewhere deep

        In the catch of sleep

I hear her cry, when I reach to hold her,

        “Oh, let me go!”