These things can be said here, this truth can be told.
Your face is your own, your body returns.
No one to hurt you now, only to hold.

I watch your eyes soften. I watch you unfold.
Your smile, that bright silence, both teaches and learns
these things can be said here, this truth can be told.

The pause between mercies can heal and enfold
the clear-cut of silence where silence still burns.
No one to hurt you now, only to hold

you, only to hear what it meant to be cold
in the presence of fire, and why a child yearns
these things can be said here. This truth can be told,

the latched heart unlocked, the secrets unscrolled
like so much false rubric; and where love's word turns,
no one to hurt you now, only to hold.

Whatever was said. You were not bought or sold.
Your face is your own, your body returns.
These things can be said here, this truth can be told.
No one to hurt you now, only to hold.




© Arthur Austin