Songs of Bilitis - Benjamin Adamah

RENDING MEMORY
I remember . . . (at what hour of the day is she not before my eyes!). I remember
the way She had of lifting her hair with pale and dainty fingers.
I remember a night she passed, cheek against my breast, so sweetly that
happiness kept me long awake; and the next day she had the imprint of the
nipple on her face.
I see her holding her cup of milk, and looking at me sidewise with a smile. I see
her, powdered and with her hair new-dressed, opening her great eyes before her
mirror and touching up the rouge upon her lips.
And above all, if my despair is everlasting torture, it is because I know, minute
by minute, how she trembles in the other's arms, and what she asks of her and
what she gives, herself.
THE WAX DOLL
Wax-doll, dear plaything that she called her child, she has left you too and forgets
you, like myself, who was with her your father or your mother, I forget.
The pressure of her lips has worn the paint from your little cheeks; and, on your
left hand, here is the broken finger that made her cry so much. This little cyclas
that you wear, 'twas, she who worked it for you.
According to her you could already read. However, you had not been weaned, and
at night, leaning over you, she opened her tunic and gave you the breast, "so that
you would not cry," she used to say.
Doll, if I should care to see her, I would give you to Aphrodite as the dearest of
my gifts. But I want to think that she is wholly dead.
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