The Moment of Love Defined, and: Ward of the Lincoln State School, 1970

The Moment of Love Defined

I am very late the unknown man
to my left announces, speaking
into the silver box
held in his palm.

An early fog swells
the path of the bridge we cross,
two commuters rushed to our train.
From the bridge, the river is high, but hard to see

the man says, the fog beginning
what is called its burn,
the slow opening to light
as an effect of light.

When I get there we will talk
the man's voice a lover's pressing whir,
I want you madly, his voice tilted,
one with the phone,

toward the weakening mist
as if love were the instrument of
its own expression, a glistened fiber
drawn through the eye

of a far-off satellite.
We walk apart, the man and I.
The etched balustrade rises
coolly as the morning clouds

are sloughed. For no reason,
I am happy. And the river, once hidden, now
paces through its chores.
The same river crossed that day and day before.

Ward of the Lincoln State School, 1970

A photograph by Jack Dykinga

Of this time say
light found him.

A heavy boy asleep in a bed
that shows the dark shape
of his weight,
the charcoal lines of Da Vinci
or Rodin, the thick
knee muscles raised
to his chin, the coiled hands
rocking a pillow
to his head.

Imagine light cradling him
as a mother would, for
all her austerity, light
loved a child, found his curled
form beautiful
as a rose.

Or think of him as yours
now that you have found him
in this photograph
of iron-railed beds
lining a room, light repeated
in the tall, grey windows
of what was, in truth,
a state tomb.