Bastille Day

She's born on Bastille Day, and every year

A revolution in her life occurs;

The sans-culottes once more forget their fear –

Another prison falls, her life detours.

This prison guard was nice: he fed her cakes,

And let her have some paper and a pen,

And every morning, when the sun awakes,

He’d let her peek through cracks within their den.

“So there’s the moon,” her prison guard would claim,

“But don’t enjoy its light too long, for there

Is madness in its gaze, and all-the-same

Another comes tomorrow just as fair.”

But in her journal she did daily write,

“His kindness traps me in eternal night.”

Watery Face

She looked into the pool and saw his face

And lingered there too long and gave her mind

To him within the water’s rippling trace

Of his closed eyes, sad mouth – his voice so kind;

It said, “Please, kiss me now, give me your breath,

And give me back the life I once enjoyed,

And with your love’s surrender and your death

Your gentle life will be by me employed:

We’ll do such things, and give our aging Earth

Another youth, an Eden here imbrued

Through me in you – Earth’s paradisal mirth

Will bubble, tumble, spring from us renewed.”

With all her heart she quickly answered yes,

And kissed his lips and felt their long caress.