At thirteen she did not
want
but did want
everything to happen.
Jackboots and camera
froze her sex.
In that. In that hell
camp
the boots and the man
trod her to the raw make.
What he willed then, for
kicks.
Freedom is strength.
Free, free,
to make her that:
she was the make he
wanted.
Pure. Dirt. Stainless.
Sin.
Looking up, chained to
the bedstead.
Thirteen, permitting
what would keep her free,
live,
for the morning sun on
the snow.
And she never left it.
Never
forgot. Free, free of
war,
suave, of the quality.
But
not free of that.
Came to Vienna, wife of a
composer.
But met at the hotel
him: her commander,
a chilled, pained man:
the Night
Porter. Who resumed. Took
her back
to the fixed terror,
relief—the joy that he
loved her,
and to their rituals that
fixed
love. The only love
either
could ever tormentedly
get
and from no other. The
wicked
pulse, with no cure.
The fetish, the sacred
fever.
