I once lay with her whose son now is dying to soon

Lie alone

He was before we were and he was when we were

No longer.

He was a dreamer, creating other worlds for the

Two of them

I always thought but today wonder if those worlds

Were for him

Alone. And now he ever-nears one of them, those

worlds imagined.

He lay with her when he came from her long

Before I came

And he was all she ever wanted, she often said,

Until I came.

No more was ever said about that other one, his

Own father.

And he, her son, seemed content with that, happy

Then I came.

And I lay with her, stayed with her, wanted her

Love and his

Wanted to be to him, for him, what he had no need

Of or for

Or so it seemed to me as he drifted further from

Us both to

Conquer and rule in his imagined worlds. We did

Not know then

About the creeping mass feeding on his brain, his

dreams' storehouse.

I went away to give her peace, to give her back her

son, to give

Me peace with my emptied self, and my tarnished

hopes for life

With her, and it was he, yes he, her son, who

tarnished them.

Now he lays dying to this world, and on the edge

Of another.

We three are bound again, for all of us now will

Lie alone.

©1998 Marilyn Guswiler

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