Like Psyche

Seeking truth, I feel like Psyche, married to the one
whose face she must not try to look upon,
but love would have her see. Need swallowed down
in night after night of ravishing glory,
even catching, (could it be?), the inviting gleam
of reflected moonglow in a dark pupil
that might contain, perfectly, her own small image.
She wakes to the rumpled, vacant pillowcase
time after time, and wanders the ancient halls
listening for a footfall or a sigh.

Her kin label him monstrous to her face,
warn that his beastly form would terrify,
should she see the truth. Some friends think her
webbed in delusion, wedded to a wraith
of her fond invention. What has he to hide
and where is he absent to, the long daylight hours?
How can he choose to be unseen, yet credible?
Their questions like incessant water dripping,
keep denting the stone, making her doubt her own heart.
Yet hers is a young heart that knows what it knows.
It has known abandonment. This is not that.

One drop of lamp-oil and the whole known world
vanishes in a clap of thunder into
a new aloneness and regret. Myths explode.
The jaded world’s gods are all jealous
of our fragile beauty, manipulate our fear.
The tasks of restitution seem beyond us
now that truth has fled. But love remains.