Mask of Love,

Do you turn to us for peace?

Me, flinching from your stare?

Her, whose face you bear?

Remember how we have climbed

The peaks of stress and stood

Wearily again and again

Face to face

Across the narrow abyss.

Remember

That our very bodies lack peace:

In tiny darknesses

The skin angrily flames,

Nerve gropes for muscle

Across the silent abyss.

You have seen our nocturnal

Suicidal dance:

She, bent on some tiny mote;

I, doubled in laughter,

Clasping my paunch in grief

For the world in a speck of dust;

Between us, the fuming abyss.

Dumb vapours pour

Where the mask of Love appears,

Reddening, and disappears.