Mourning as a Narcissist

That pale morning in the mud,
we crowded round a chasm,
and in the darkness you did lie-
with cries many voices spasmed.

I stood rigid with blue-streaked hands,
half dead in my own pain.
No- it was not the strangle of your loss
but my inner choke of shame.

So, that pale morning in the mud,
steeped in cloud and gale,
like a racked tree of evergreen
I hid in my affliction stale.