If you ask her why the first light
Is so often cold and bitter,
And why the dawn leaks with acid
From behind the corroded hills,
Or why she rubs out the stars
With pale hatred and lashes out
Against the clouds she sets adrift,

You only have to follow her
Home and see what sort of marriage
She contracted. When first they met,
It's true, he seemed to glow no less
Than she. In bed, his body took
Up all the room and scorched the sheet
With his own peculiar fire.

But now he's shriveled to a seed,
Unseeing, unhearing, undone,
His cricket-shrill voice calling her
The names of the sheep he tended.
Look what comes of falling in love
With a mortal who'll last forever!
And she could have married a god.