Your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
(These lines were copied in your 1986 sketchbook, right after we met the first time, and you inked in a sketch of my face next to it. The sketch looks just like the 28-year-old version of me, the unhappy version.
What did you see in my face that wasn't yet there? How did you know I could learn to be happy? How did you know you could teach me?)
I want so badly to believe that those final lines will be true again. I try so hard to see you, to make you palpable in poems. I'm doing my best, sweetheart. I am. I am. I am.
I know you'd be excited about this, which will be out in 2012. It's available for preorder from Amazon. (My poem is the weirdest one, which would make you inordinately proud. I put in Alice, Oz, thrift stores, family Bibles, canaries, everything I could).
3 comments:
Yes. He would be so proud. I am sure of it.
Am excited for you as well. Congratulations. You are a most wonderful steward of your shared fires. xo
Thank you all! I will be so glad when I can post this poem.
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