Penitent Wife

Why do you return, penitent?

The room has not changed since the day

You laughed and went away.

He has not changed-why do you come?

Come with your kindness, with crying-

Now that he is dying?

Now that he at last lies broken,

Who once had the slim-haunched and fleet

Motion of feline feet;

Sped like a dun shadow beneath

The honey-colored sun-was free . . .

O savage travesty!

This your return; this being kind

To eyes wide with the suffering

Of a trapped hunted thing;

This being kind, when you were never

Kind before, making death a whim-

The last-you have for him.