You Took a Picture of Our Shadows on the Cement

Do you wish it were my shadow,

Lying there next to yours,

As you stand clothed in moonlit glow

Behind a shut and bolted door?

Do you curse the sun in its rising

And the fiction it reveals;

The soft pink beam your sight reviling

For the dream it always steals?

And in the merciless light of day,

Do you close your eyes

Against the breath of noon and say

That all this world is lies?

When, tomorrow, you lead him to bed,

Perhaps you wish the hand

That grasps at yours were mine instead!

Perhaps, you think it grand

That lust in the dark needs no face,

And can yet trick the heart,

Believing the virginal bed lies chaste,

Concealing night plays its part.

To lover's guilt you need not be a slave;

Know that I can empathize.

Our necessary deception only tries to save

The dream that daily dies.

What I saw of truth I witnessed in you.

I turn back and see my shadow,

Wishing it were no longer one, but two

And weep for a love I cannot know.