Shadow-Maker

Gwendolyn MacEwen

 I have come to possess your darkness, only this.

My legs surround your black, wrestle it
As the flames of day wrestle night
And everywhere you paint the necessary shadows
On my flesh and darken the fibres of my nerve;

Without these shadows I would be
In the air wave ruinous light
And night with many mouths would close
Around my infinite and sterile curve.
 
Shadow-maker create me everywhere 
Dark spaces (your face is my chosen abyss), 
For I said I have come to possess your darkness,
Only this.

Carol Wilson