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Vera Kilgore Heilig: Her Poetry Lives (2017) H. Morris Williams, Marie Law Haire

Wile

Man seldom loves a woman. What he loves

Is his reflection in a woman’s eyes.
So, mindful of Narcissus, I will keep

Your image polished brightly. Otherwise
Some wench with deeper eyes than mine may

Come
And show a vision you would rather see,

And you, because your nature is a man’s,

Will turn away to her, forgetting me.

But if my heart persistently holds up
A picture of the man you well might be,

In time you may believe that it is so,

And, transfixed by my vision stay with me.
Foreswearing other gods, you’ll worship here

The god-like image I have wrought of you.
Thus will I bind you to me through yourself

And you will not perceive the thing I do.

Yet, if before this shrine where incense bums

I grope, my darkness only dimly lit
By this, the oblique glow from your self-love,

I lose my way to you, and losing it
I lose what my heart sought. This murky dusk

Can never be bright dawn until there rise,

To mate this splendid image I have willed,
My image radiant within your eyes.

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