An Imagined Dialogue

Charles: Let us go to bed - for I am weary and need sleep and your body close to mine is the only thing that gives me good rest. 

Deborah (to herself): So we'll sleep until morning if the night permits,

if Winter does not penetrate the sheets we share

with cold immuring. But that does not mean

that I will love you when the day breaks. 

The sun's light can be raw, sometimes, 

and when it breaks upon my eyes and penetrates

through my skin, it may boil and confuse

the things inside me, confound them to patterns new. 

Should I be blamed for this? Nature and I -

we have a pact of sorts. I flow and ebb according,

sometimes, to her wishes and vaunts of fancy.

I am tractable, pliant; my days are as lifetimes.

The beauty of my body (if beauty indeed there be)

and the love in my heart (if such passions can so be called)

abides here awhile with you - but the night drones

letting rest what was past, cooling the earth

upon which tomorrow lights fires anew.