Each time you left,
Each one of you,
Each time that each one left;
To tear my rhyme and take my breath
With the sheer vindictive speed of you,
The mute, unfulfilled need of you
To do me death.

Your fury fed, fourfold, I said;
I bled in disbelief!
You packed my little ones, each one –
One of my little loved ones into your sad valise –
To twist the pain of your passing into
The stained-glass stains of your bloodletting
At the altar of my grief.

David Lewis Paget