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Inspired by a poem by Edna St Millay - Bluebeard; it plays with the idea of personal autonomy; as, do we or should we share all of ourselves with another?

Sonnet in Silence

They’d walked along the beach silent too long
And she, taking his silence as separation
Asked him what he was thinking,
As if his thoughts to himself did not belong
But as much to her, so he might as well
Just surrender without any appeal
To an inner privacy he’d not shared;
So, what was thought could also be heard,
By becoming less himself and more hers.
And was that his fear – to be conjoined
More than just in body but also in mind,
As being himself was as much what he’d think?
All this rushed through his mind so fast that
When he looked back at her he did not blink.

D G Moody 2025

Sonnet by D G Moody