The inheritance of that dark lady is absence,

Her gifts unwrapped to an empty box;

What comfort she offered her bed did mock–

Her explanation followed as silence.

That maps that she traced shaped emptiness,

The promises she whispered were balked;

The doors that she had opened remained locked–

The medicine she offered was sickness.

What is there from before that can explain?

That she stopped swimming? That she let a tide pull

Her into those dark waters, to be twain

On her return, a creature beyond law

Bound by paired desires, beauty not yet flawed,

Like some two-skinned ocean myth, to land chained?