The Ravenna Pact Poem by Norman King Lloyd

My lover has come back from the shadow of our night
With a pulse, just whispering: for me, for me!

Caressing my body with his complex heart
He begins upon my eyes. I bite into blood.
Kiss his wrists, sooth his worry.
And like the soulless lover I am, undo his face.

Just after seven, as the early light lisps onto my smile
He knows my prettiness is wild and selfish
And turns to the wall. I sit quietly.
Holding back appetite. Outside the foreign voices
Are like bright coins falling on stone.

We breakfast on the balcony and write postcards.
Agree that the panettone tastes wonderful.
Then he looks up and says: Will you do it?

I made the space. I made him ask again. I made him give love.
Then I turned the knife that my life had made me up to then.

And it made me whole.

…

Overhung with heat, the afternoon settles in
Withering the world for looking out and those trim witches,
His past, take breath inside my mind.

Later, I cover him with my summer coat.
Call my mother and ring for staff to post the cards.
Let out my newly loved blood. Let out my feeling. Let out my life.

Gradually, the clatter from the dining-room muffles…
The pine-tops rocket out their blackened birds…
Like the shock from last night, when he whispered not love but dying.

And slowly, as if on tiptoe, my ruined soul drifts quietly
Out of the glaring setting sun.



…