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Self-Portrait as Eurydice

Edward Hirsch 

Some part of me was already dead 
to the world, languishing in darkness 
by the time, angel, you breasted the void 

and coaxed your way into the motherless 
infernal realm where I had waited 
without knowing it, in mute hopelessness, 

and so I rejoiced to feel my blood 
stirring again, and to touch your hand, 
and to follow you through worm-eaten ground 

to the brightly-lit air of the beloved, 
a country bountiful and sensuous 
where we would always be embodied, 

but then you faltered—my flesh, my faithless 
love—and betrayed me to the emptiness.