A Small Autumn Love Song

You reappear in my life newly wearing
a silver two-headed serpant about your wrist:
witchery to keep off small evils.
Perhaps your sister
was right in the gift--
blessing your leaving with her love.
As yet, I can't.
For now, we fall into
my dark room,
kindle the candle
fill up the cavern with light
and descending, ascend: this is white magic.
After, we converse, silently
feeding on morsals of each other's lives,
such cordial canibals.
Later, you will be off, leaving
leaving the dust of your tender advice
drifting against my doorstep
And my heart again,
that wild October apple
hoarding juices
against your return.
I am bitten, stricken, felled by light,
devoured by your absence,
knowing, as I do,
I need your going, as your coming.



Julia Douglass (AKA, me)
p. 147
New Orleans Review,
Vol. 4, No. 2
©1974