Alice
O. Howell
THE WISE MISTRESS
For all the sublimating into gold
is youth the baser metal
to the old?
the putrefaction of our pain
is always to
another's gain
with embers of our own desires
we light another's
altar fires
the ashes in that garden laid
where younger lovers
will have strayed
I'd take the tinctures of my very soul
to make one broken vision whole
could I but give a lovelier rose
to the dark master
of my last repose.
a.o.howell