Alcestis

When she came back things went on much as before.

The servants immediately said she'd grown too thin,

brewed tea and put her to bed and closed the door-

"Sleep now!" Nobody asked her where she'd been.

Where had she been? What had that long fall meant

from which she'd startled, stunned? Love was a dream.

But when she saw him puzzled, hesitant

approach her bed, what use was it to tell him

he had not moved her but her own sheer longing

to break, break open, flame with love's own flame?

She never spoke. She lived on, a spent thing,

for years. And no one saw, such was her grace,

how when she walked no shadow stalked the room

and in the mirror no face met her face.