Why do you love me?
You came running outside the café
As the rain poured,
And when you knew I was at her mercy
You gave me what was needful,
So that I might endure the night.
That night, my sleep was peaceful.
Because I knew that I was loved,
And I asked God to bless you,
Although I did not know your heart.

Why do you love me?
I heard you call me at the theatre
And though I saw you were with her,
I still rejoiced to be with you.
For it was you who gazed at me with longing
As the lights went down
And she glared toward the stage unknowing,
That the last image I might receive before the darkness
Was the compelling mercy
Ignited in your eyes.

Why do you love me?
Your smile was too genuine for me
When I saw you for the first time in forever,
And it was only you and I for hours,
Before she appeared
And scowled.

Why do you love me?
When I entered alone into Living Water,
Into the place that I have called the House of God
You soon arrived, as though you knew,
Provoking me to intimacy,
So that finally you would see
That your love had not been in vain.
And yet how suddenly your heart was quieted,
When she appeared,
And I departed,
To face the angry night.

Hours passing long into morning,
I labored the nuances of you,
And asked the Lord for wisdom,
While my senses deceived me.
He said that marriage is honorable in all,
And the bed undefiled.
But hearing that tortured me only further,
At the thought that you should be with her.
And when I asked how I might save you,
He only said you were already His child,
And protected in His eternal care.

So I never understood
Why two women would be together,
And one be taken, and the other left,
On the day when we will rise
To meet the Lord in the air.
But as I coveted you,
A woman’s wife,
A woman who hates me,
In much the way you love me,
I cried again for knowledge,
And again the words came
At the moment of my most pathetic weakness:
That sex is holy.
And I knew it,
And I wept.

Copyright © 2005 by Andy Pope