You can not heal me of my love for you--
        it's too late for the cancer to be cured.
        Many have come between us but they were harlots
        whose bodies were their only offerings.
                        XXX
        We knew us first in the first city of saints
        upon our doomed continent of darkness
        where my soul was mutilated because of
        Our Noble Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
        the jealous Son of an even more jealous Sire.
        I was nailed facing him upon the fourth cross
        where I have been hanging since that far night
        to atone for our joint sin of carnal knowledge.
                        XXX
        Lust and pain are gone now
        but love remains eternal
        and shall triumph over
        all the tombs of jealous gods.

        May 21, 1970
        Birmingham, Alabama