Scorn

She thought of no wilder delicacy than the starling eggs she fed him
for breakfast,
and if he sat and ate like a farmhand and she hated him sometimes,
she knew it didn't matter: that whatever in the din of argument
was harshly spoken, something else was done, soothed and patted
away.
When they were young the towering fierceness
of their differences had frightened her even as she longed for physical
release.
Out of their mouths such curses; their hands huge, pointing, stabbing
the air.
How had they not been wounded? And wounded they'd convalesced in
the same rooms
and bed. When at last they knew everything without confidingfears,
stinks,
boiling heartsthey gave up themselves a little so that they might
both love and scorn
each other, and they ate from each other's hands.