by Peter Miles
You’re the tight twist in my heart
when lost gulls of paperboys cry
in a brownout, you are the lights
of my vanishing home and my desperate heart’s
last, ultimate houselights.
Dear, and I must
go out in the darkness, leaving the old
friendly things and the laughter and eyes
as before in the past, I must be going
all my swift life from the lights of my home.
Even though trams and the scuffle
of feet and the paperboys’ cries
come loud in the brownout, still it is empty
and silent, silent as horror
and empty as eyes are that turn
strange in the face of a friend.
Still it was empty, but you
were incredible fire and white
gay unquenchable heat, and you were the twist
in my heart that took fire and lit
dark halls of the soul:
you are my truth
whom I utterly love and the lights
of my home and the laughter, all
lesser things;
and the one
supernatural life and desire:
you are the soul of my being.
Peter Miles (1945)