In the topsy-turvy high school world of Day of Atonement, Book 3 of the Days of Ascension Series, Poets, Mathematicians, and Choirgirls lord it over the universally despised Dumbjocks and Cheerleaders, under the cruel matriarchy of the fertility goddess Asherah. So poetess Irene D’Angelo, a junior who is the Strategos of the Chatham High School Cheetahs Poetry Squad, should be on top of the world. But she is hiding two terrible secrets: her best friend the Mathematician Ryan is a closeted homosexual, a crime punishable by death, and her mother was the Madam of the consecrated Cathouse under the previous regime of Moloch, the god of child sacrifice. In this poem, which appears in full in the text, Irene expresses her longing for her vanished father, a taboo word under the Matriarchy.
A silhouette looms in memory’s haze
Shadowy and huge against the light
I can’t see his eyes, but I feel his gaze
Such a long time gone, a lifetime of days
Since strong arms guarded me against the night
A silhouette looms in memory’s haze
His face has dissolved into a formless maze
The features blur though I make my mind’s eye bright
I can’t see his eyes, but I feel his gaze
Though I strain my thoughts, his voice can’t be raised
From the endless silence which none can fight
but his silhouette still looms in memory’s haze
Gone longer than I knew him, yet I yearn for his praise
A single kind word, a moment in his sight,
but I can’t see his eyes, though I feel his gaze
In my dreams, he’s there now and always
Just out of my reach, I can’t touch him, not quite
Only glimpsing his silhouette, looming in memory’s haze
A blink of hidden eyes, and I still feel his gaze
