#metho drinker

Judith Wright, from "Metho Drinker"

Under the death of winter's leaves he lies who cried to Nothing and the terrible night to be his home and bread. "O take from me the weight and waterfall ceaseless Time that batters down my weakness; the knives of light whose thrust I cannot turn; the cruelty of human eyes that dare not touch nor pity." Under the worn leaves of the winter city safe in the house of Nothing now he lies. His white and burning girl, his woman of fire, creeps to his heart and sets a candle there to melt away the flesh that hides from bone, to eat the nerve that tethers him in time. He will lie warm until the bone is bare and on a dead dark moon he wakes alone. It was for Death he took her; death is but this; and yet he is uneasy under her kiss and winces from that acid of her desire.