Love on the Streets: Selected and New Poems

Love Song for a Man Whose Mother Killed Herself

• 12 Love Song for a man whose mother killed herself Your open mouth like the ocean where you allow me, swimming. Beneath all things, the Bible says are the waters but men don’t open this way. They are the ships headed for some horizon, the rescuers dragging the lake for days for her body, you said. You have opened yourself so wide you are the water your mother drowned in. She lies at the bottom of you, the dark deep water that covers you. I see her face sleeping with open eyes looking toward the sun. I am wanting the secret of this watery garden the secret the leaves hide and the wind call it the world the secret she would not live without. It is deep going between here and the new country. In the night we are seen waving back to the shore. Voices call for us. I emerge over your body to see the earth in light. You have opened to me. You are the first man who has ever opened to me. Somehow you have made yourself the man she would not live without. ...