Aline Kilmer

From “Novelette”

“I AM glad I have come.”

Let me stay, let me stay—

I would not go home.

Let me rest in your kindness,

Your blessed blindness,

For a night and a day.

Your sweet incurious eyes

Would widen in sharp surprise

If you knew how under my breath

I pray, “Let me sleep to death—

O God, let me never go home!”

But I speak through the fragrant gloom

Of your hushed and decorous room:

“Yes, I am glad I have come.”