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18.  Zero Effect

You demand I destroy the photographs.
I am ready to surrender that.
We kneel
At the chessboard patterned fireplace.
 
I strike a match.
You grab my wrist.
 
You put the smiling faces
Neatly in a music box,
Say look at them any time,
You love me too much
To take
Even this
Away,
And we'll talk about it
Later.
I open it when you aren't here.
Will you ever see?
You can never extinguish
The darkness in me.
 
As much as you hate to look at
Me hitting absolute zero,
These platinum and blue
Photographs of winter
Might keep the war from coming.
 
Please let me keep them.