Then we lay aside the sword and the lace
without lyric or narrative,
no need when the kill was so long in coming,
nailed the young moon to the sky upper right
where its horns could wound no one,
pale bull in a dark arena long ago
abandoned by all but the romantics,
and wrapped in a stained sash
and the stain spreading
we waited for the dawn of a new era,
the years that would come to be known
as the Age of Devotion,
pretending we hadn't been gored
and would live to see it.
