Effort At Speech Between Two People
Speak to me. Take my hand. What are you now? I will tell you all, I will conceal nothing. When I was three, a little child read a story about a rabbit who died in the story, and I crawled under a chair, a pink rabbit: it was my birthday and a candle burnt a sore spot t my finger and I was told to be happy.
Oh, grow to know me. I am not happy. I will be open: now I am thinking of white sails against the sky like music; like glad horns blowing, and birds tilting, and an arm about me. There was the one that I loved, who wanted to live, sailing.
Speak to me. Take my hand. What are you now? When I was nine, I was sentimental, fluid: and my widowed aunt played Chopin, and I bent my head on the painted woodwork and wept.
I want to be close to you. I would link the minutes of my days close somehow to your days.
I am not happy. I have liked lamps in evening corners, and quite poems. There has been fear in my life. Sometimes I speculate on what a tragedy his life was, really.
Take my hand. Fist my mind in your hand. What are you now? When I was fourteen, I had dreams of suicide, and I stood at a steep window, at sunset, thinking of jumping toward death: if light had not melted clouds and plains to beauty, if light had not transformed that day, I would have leapt. I am unhappy. I am lonely. Speak to me.
I will be open. I think he never loved me: He loved the bright beaches, the little lips of foam that ride small waves, he loved the veer of gulls. He said with a gay mouth,: I love you. Grow to know me.
What are you now? If we could touch one another, if these our separate entities could come to grips, clenched like a Chinese puzzle...yesterday I stood in a crowded street that was live with people and no one spoke a word, and the morning shone. Everyone silent, moving...Take my hand. Speak to me...
Copyright © Karen Bowen | Year Posted 2015
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