I have loved you, some might say,
in the worst times;
I held your breath inside me when the sun set,

perhaps without returning;

yes, the sun stopped bending toward us, my dear.

And in our blue turned nectar world, the men have drifted into
unshakable slumbers;
so many locked in eternal sleep,
but you;

I have stayed awake to hide you.

For on the walls of Babylon
there are columns of men hanged neatly.
Fires warming underfoot,
women warm their hands,
HERE BE DRAGONS! carved into the wall;
each square inch of this Babylon is screaming revolt, revolt, revolt;
no men here, nothing to see.

This city has no place for my love for you, 

the atmosphere is made of breathlessness. 

When they find you, sweet boy,

they will have their assumptions met.

They will decorate the wall with a necklace of you:

occultist, warlock, evil, they will say.

But you are no Tituba,

no Abigail,

no Parris.

Whatever evil there is in you,
I have found and kept it warm within myself.
Sacrificed at the altar,
their reality has been altered by the death of the sun.
Without the shield of daylight,
they have lost the power of beholding
free hours, frightening moments.
Do not say, what will become of them?
Do not say, there is virtue in this or that –
it is a just cleansing of Babylon with their blood,
Let us begin here, where the metal is clanging,
and the phones are still ringing;
some unknown radio station is humming in the background, life is going on around us.
There are no days or nights.
Just this.
Single moments.