Panic in your face, you write questions
to ask him. When he arrives,
you are serene, your fear
unbetrayed. How unlike me you are.
After the dance,
I see your happiness; he holds
your hand. Though you barely speak,
your body pulses messages I can read
all too well. He kisses you goodnight,
his body moving toward yours, and yours
responding. I am frightened, guard my
tongue for fear my mother will pop out
of my mouth. “He is not shy,” I say. You giggle,
a little girl again, but you tell me he
kissed you on the dance floor. “Once?”
I ask. “No, a lot.”
We ride through rain-shining 1 a.m.
streets. I bite back words which long
to be said, knowing I must not shatter your
moment, fragile as a spun-glass bird,
you, the moment, poised on the edge of
flight, and I, on the ground, afraid.
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Copyright © 1995
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Николай Карамзин – К милости
- Владислав Крапивин – Когда тебя замучил враг
- Юрий Галансков – Мне больно
- Sussex by Rudyard Kipling
- Федор Сологуб – Ландыш пленительный
- Омар Хайям – Из края в край мы держим к смерти путь
- Sonnet 144: Two loves I have, of comfort and despair by William Shakespeare
- Николай Некрасов – Великодушный поступок
- A Song From ‘The Player Queen’ by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Орлов – Дядя Миша на печи
- Lover’s Gifts XLIII: Dying, You Have Left Behind by Rabindranath Tagore
- Laodamia by William Wordsworth
- Attitude To A Miss by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Николай Тихонов – И сказал женщине суд
- Ah Poverties, Wincings and Sulky Retreats. by Walt Whitman
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
