I shout love in a blizzard's

scarf of curling cold,

for my heart's a furred sharp-toothed thing

that rushes out whimpering

when pain cries the sign writ on it.

I shout love into your pain

when skies crack and fall

like slivers of mirrors,

and rounded fingers, blued as a great rake,

pluck the balled yarn of your brain.

I shout love at petals peeled open

by stern nurse fusion-bomb sun,

terribly like an adhesive bandage,

for love and pain, love and pain

are companions in this age.

-- Milton Acorn, 1958