After "Sarcophagus": Avon

It's odd, I think, that everything I touch
And everything I hope for falls to dust;
My life is crumbled into ash and rust,
And so I learn to never hope for much.

Who is there of my life now left to me?
Anna, deadly love, whose death I bear;
And Blake, most likely dead, or who knows where;
And Cally, of no people, now, like me.

Cally, do you think that you and I,
Two outcasts, cut off wholly from our kind,
Together, do you think that we might find
Some comfort in each other? We might try.

Cally, was it bad, the alien touch
Within your mind, taking your body's shape?
Was it very bad, that mental rape?
Oh, Cally, it was bad to have to watch.

I said that you could only make me die.
But looking in your eyes, I know the lie.

After "Sarcophagus": Cally

I knew I was alone when Zelda died,
The last of all my sisters; and I fell,
I fainted from the sudden burning hell
Of bombs, the death-shock; when I woke, I cried.

I thought I was alone, and now I find
That there are worse things than to be alone--
Thoughts old and dry as millenia-aged bone,
A subtle, evil touch of mind to mind.

I owe you, Avon, more than you can know.
Did you know I could not let you die?
I did not know, until I felt it try,
That I had strength to force it from my soul.

And I am not alone. Although my kind
Are dead, I have my friends, and you.
Avon, can you open, let me through?
I need the touch: of hands, if not of mind.

You could not die; I would not let it be.
Oh, let me touch you! Let us both be free!