Nevers

Passions never spoken

never broken but preserved,

never layered under marriages

or burnt to dust by fast affairs

are saints to us,

the sacred ones,

bodily enshrined

to lie in state like Bernadette

at Nevers of the mind;

amazing, garlanded and fair.

Older, at the inkling

or an accent or a smile,

we travel there.

-- Colette Bryce, from The Heel of Bernadette