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Therese

By

Neill Raymond

I look hard into your picture, Therese...

not all that's left of you though,

but all I can see now; maybe all that I'll ever see again.

 

I hope sometime the cloudy, ancient photograph will come to life

and your quiet face will speak,

only to me and not the multitudes (at least for a moment.)

 

Already like another Beatrice

leading me from the shadows of that cardboard place

as hope from your life of hope turns the shadows green

 

Even through the gray of that wrinkled paper

the image of your unrouged lips seem able to whisper paradise

and your colorless eyes show more than a masters portrait might

 

What do you think Therese? as we try to conjure you up

from that opulent case where your relics rest

We ten thousand who have barged through this cathedral's door

 

I hope it is only me, that you see from your heavenly bough

(In the whole ten thousand there's but a few as tall as me)

Isn't that the hope of all here, to be singled out by you ?

 

Does that matter in your fair, perfect love; love from a life sacrificed

You a young girl then, when that powder flash burst

and cast that cold paper's image like bread upon the water... Finally to me

Your faith left you fair, even as it killed you so young

 

Listen to my prayers Therese,

they will be my caresses, the only way I can ever touch you.