I can’t unsee the ugliness he brought
When, after a long silence had ensued,
He placed his pains upon me, iron-wrought,
As overturning stones, both old and new
He—looking, looking, frantic, for a sign
To label what he saw and did not like
A sin (a grievous error, in his mind)—
Laid blame before retreating from his strike;
A cut which I still wear along my heart
And, even as I wince at each new stitch,
I sew with bloody fingers each torn part.
The wound, once healed, will probably still itch.
His ugliness I never will unsee
Yet, that reflects on him, and not on me.
The Quick and the Dead 