I have to go away


to slough off this blemished skin


and scrape my soul


raw in privacy,


for sins of the flesh


should not be bathed but scourged,


until this impious peel


is stripped of its flawed markings.





I must slide away


or slither far from the cover


of concealed shame,


and in the open grate myself


against abrasive censure


until self-scoured I re-emerge


to start another life.





To live again without your love,


though, is to imitate Creation


in a second fruitless facsimile


of a barren Godless Eden.


If I have sinned by loving you,


then, like those first sinners, expelled


I must expiate until eternity;


I too have to go away.








[Unpublished]