It was me, peering through the looking-gla**. Beyond the embrace of Christ. Like the secret face within the tapestry. Like a bird of prey over the crest. And she was swathed in sorrow, as if born within its mask. Her candlelight snuffed, the icon smiled. Emptiness followed by her wake. I could clasp her in undying love. Within ghostlike rapture the final word was mine. She faced me in awe. 'twas a token of ebony colour. Embodied in faint vapour. Wandering through April's fire. Compelled to grasp and to hold the one that was you. I will endure, hide away. I would outrun the scythe, glaring with failure. It is a mere destiny I thought, a threshold I had crossed before. The rain was waving goodbye, and when the night came the forest folded its branches around me. Something pa**ed by, and I went into a dream. She laughing and weeping at once: "take me away". I don't know how or why, I'll never know WHEN.