Night Vigil

 by Brett Rutherford

After Asclepiades,
     The Greek Anthology, v, 189

It is night.
The dead of winter.
Her rooftop grinds
against the setting
     Pleiades.
She is no gift
from the love-goddess;
these icy pangs I feel
resemble bee-stings
     or tiny thunderbolts.
The more she betrays me
behind those bolted doors,
the deeper it cuts at me.
The more I pace,
the longer the dawn delays.
Whose hand will emerge,
whose hooded head pop out
from the gaping entryway
at cock-crow, and skulk away?
Does it even matter?
Sea-salt, tear-salt, heart-jab —
love is an open wound.