Heartwood Needing Treatment
Love feeding on itself will waste away
No matter how enamored. If it sucks
Its Valentine-ish marrow, sickly gray
Disease will follow. Suffering deluxe
Is suffering nonetheless. If he or she
Does not return the hungry love, the gloom
Is certain even if the doter be
Devoted to the passion. Ashen doom
Awaits as certainly as elms are killed
By fungus if they do not have the strength
That comes from a resistance that has filled
The sufferer. This only comes at length
With psychotherapy and cures awash
With fancy theory—and lots of dosh.