The Mill: A Winter Pastoral (12)

January 8 1972, graveyard shift

Song

Pursued by a question
I found a closed book
That said on its cover
Don’t open and look.

Like Eve at the apple
I gazed a long time
While the serpent of doubt
Egged me on to the crime.

I spread forth the pages
I took the sweet bite
But the morsel turned bitter
As the words came to light.

I couldn’t stop reading
Despite the hot pain
In the slash those words burned
From my eye to my brain.

I love you, they screamed
To the man sent away,
It was just for the others
That I made my display.

But I know and you know
And they know it too
All trapped in a lie
We must live to be true.

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