I Return Your Secret Names

I Return Your Secret Names

It is still raining here at the western borders

drop on drop pelting the circled waters

The coltsfoot’s sweet spires flare out

beside the crossroads. Once, remember

we cut wood together here, rain sluicing

our naked faces. You were perhaps innocent

as your children. I was no more innocent

than the snake gladly in spring weather

spreading my body over the warm stones

luxurious & now & then shaken

by the seductive poisons of this world. And now

it is the time of marriage, your second wedding.

Your bride is lovely as a fig tree, a blond country.

You ask me for the angles of cold stars

You hope for stellar certainty, a silver

future, you who once crossed

this body of earth with gold, & do you

remember that savaged landscape?

I return your secret names, my life

written under your eyelids, my taste

of fir sap & young bitter ferns

erasing itself gently & forever

from your mouth, from your seeking tongue

(this poem came out some years ago in Poet Lore. And what can one do but let go, sometimes. )