Cupid & Psyche

"Psyche, the all-beautiful, sat sad and solitary, only admired, never loved."

Psyche:

At first I knew you
only in the dark,
your face a white,
sweet blur against the night;

And never questioned
after waiting days
and nights and years
because there you were,

Your arms and chest
and ribs and lips firm
beneath my fingers.

Then the creeping whispers.
Fear and Doubt,
like two sisters came and
slipped their slim
suggestions in;

Switched on the light,
threw into shape the planes
of your face-- a quick,
hot kiss and then
you vanished as you should.

"'Love cannot live where there is no trust,' he said, and flew away."

Cupid:

I watch you across miles
     as you count
the grains one by one
     separating them
into piles which stretch
     the hours
into dreams of centuries
     and aching as
we are separated, like
     seeds from sand

I nurse the wound
     you've left on me--
the angry burn of suddenness
     that you became,
but as it heals I know
     your penance,
and my penance one day
     will be done
and we will come together
     but then will be
clothed in light.

"Love and the Soul had sought and, after sore trials, found each other; and that union could never be broken."