Temple You

What is mysterious about loss,
flush of arm pulled from a wilted sleeve,

summer's urine-tang in autumn leaves?
Let John Keats light another fag.

Or Brontë refuse the doctor
on her black sateen settee.

For whatever part of you
may be taken away, you said,

is the scar I will visit first
with my mouth, each time,

as gold visits the thieved till,
sun the obliterated sill,

saying praise you for leaving
me this you, this living still.




- Lisa Russ Spaar, Poetry, February 2013