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║ Beneath my bed, in velvet shrine,
║ There slept soft forms in sweet design.
║ With eyes that burned through printed veil,
║ And mouths mid-verse, in moan or tale.
║
║ Each page, a pulse; each fold, a breath,
║ A blush beneath the threat of death.
║ Their limbs, half-seen, in lightless grace,
║ Would haunt the dark with honeyed face.
║
║ They danced in dusk,those paper maids.
║ In whispered lace and ink-wrought shades.
║ No finer art hath stirred my core
║ Than sylphs in bloom, in hidden lore.
║
║ But morning came with purging hand,
║ A white-gloved wrath I could not stand.
║ My chapel ransacked, rites revoked
║ Their bodies burned, their verses choked.
║
║ Now silence sleeps where once they lay,
║ My altar cold, my nights left grey.
║ I dream of touch I cannot steal
║ So leave me be. I’m trying to heal.
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