Though Heaven deaf cannot undo the past
Nor make me young a full score years today
Nor make you love me more, me love you less
Nor lend me words to scintillate and sway

And though the outcast state I lived is doomed
And though the kiss-strewn pedestal is cracked
Where new eyes see a cold and hungry tomb
A place of fear where hope is ere attacked

I know you loved me well, as well you could
For I, your handmaid, fed on every crumb
Now rage is fed by memory, like wood
Cut by the silence of your tongue, still dumb

I waited for your words to set me free
Until I saw, in my own hands, the key

Sara Michele O'Sullivan
Copyright 2000. All rights reserved.

"The Rose Maiden," above
from the "Fairytales" gallery
Copyright Stephanie Pui-Mun Law,
2002. All rights reserved.
Used with permission. Thank you!

for Nathan