[Janice D. Soderling]

This is astounding, masterly, so well-crafted that I hardly know where to begin.

Perhaps by saying that it is a resonating poem—full of echoes, hidden meanings, doors opening to doors but with no real exit that allows escape.

For me, one of keys to understanding it is the careful selection of words that hold several simultaneous meanings. In common parlance, it is the context that gives meaning. We readers decide as we merrily read along, yes, no, no, yes. But in this poem, it is less certain what meaning is meant in a number of words; we must entertain the several meanings simultaneously, and as with the twisted reasoning of a child's murderer or of a god we cannot understand, we flail in darkness, we lose our foothold, we become terrified.

I would not change the title. Remember that "valediction" means "a leave-taking" (vale dicere, 'to say farewell') and the message in the title is "now we must part, (my sweet), and I am not sorry for what I have done". At the same time, the context is such that one cannot other than think "malediction" (to speak evil). An added fillip is this title's proximity to the Donne title of the poem that compares the lovers' parting to death (and opening another door, to the concept of la petite mort, and the many doors in that room http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_petite_mort ).

Now on to the poem itself. I could write an entire essay on this, but will try to restrain myself, skipping some of the more obvious features and tropes.

There is an echo of Donne in this: some songs / of stuff that conquers all and makes us one.

(Donne: Our two souls therefore, which are one, / Though I must go, endure not yet / A breach,)

Even the most insensitive will hear the echoes of "love conquers all" and "one in Christ" and Prospero's "We are such stuff / As dreams are made on; and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep."

Stuff. Another of those purselike words stuffed with (forgive the pun) many gold coins of meaning. For "stuff" incorporates the ideas of "substance—material of which something is made", here corporeality, physical bodies, "worthless objects", "specific talk or action", "special capabilities", and the violent "to force, shove, or squeeze". Not to mention the vulgar meaning just under the surface of "stuff" as "sexual intercourse".

Consider also "chaperone", the meaning of which is not the everyday image of a persistent old aunty who tags along behind lovers so they do not steal a kiss, but which actually means "A guide or companion whose purpose is to ensure propriety or restrict activity".

The substance of the poem is (to my mind) no more gruesome than many of the religious undertones of Christianity, "this is my body, this is my blood, eat, drink". Even as a child I abhorred the evangelistic idea of being washed in lamb's blood.

The wall between religious and sexual ecstasy is thinner than we like to think, consider the bacchanals or the Freudian utterances of St. Teresa.

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it...

We hear echoes also of Frankie and Johnny, "I'd never do you wrong", the rejected lover's final capture of the rejecting party.

And the creepy reasoning of Humbert Humbert, or the weirdos recently come to light who held women captive for reasons a normal mind cannot fathom. If these evildoers were caught, how many are never caught. It is too awful to think about, the missing children, where are they, are they alive or dead? Such thoughts are always dwelling under the surface of our contemporary consciousness, pre-preparing us for the aspect/impact/wham-in-the-solar-plexus that this poem delivers.

With respect to Gillie (hearty welcome to the Sphere, Gillie, and thanks for excellent and enjoyable reflections), but I respectfully disagree with your dislike of "nearby". Consider the sonics of that line:

safe, I swear. Nearby. You’ll never need

It is loaded with scary "s" sounds and nefarious "nnnnn" sounds that reinforce the scary and nefarious meaning of the words chosen.

There is more, but that will do for today.

Is the theme religious? God excusing himself for killing his son? Or secular, a creepy pedophile who has raped and murdered a young boy or girl? Only the poet knows, and perhaps not even the poet knows! (I have my suspicions about who the author might be.)

Whew! What a poem!