Seven Poems

   I betrayed and I was betrayed.
Wistful for righteousness I added to
   The world's evil. Invoke my shade
With gentleness; this grief will be yours too.


Phaedra and Hippolytus

She felt the virgin's tentative
Thin lips brush stiff against her own;

Reluctant flesh, that would be shown
The force of lust's imperative.


Loss

The lunacy of love
Is fierce and brief-

And years alone remove
Its sequent grief.


Maximilian Kolbe

       'In Auschwitz . . . the Polish priest Maximilian Kolbe
         took the death upon himself which had been meant
...