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
- The Bayadere
- Grow Up: Time to Give Up Your YA Books
- Song of Diego Valdez by Rudyard Kipling
- Алексей Хомяков – Просьба
- Thanksgiving for a Habitat by W H Auden
- Владимир Маяковский – Реклама издательства “Красная новь”
- Reveille by Primo Levi
- A Tale of Christmas Eve by William Topaz McGonagall
- In the Matter of One Compass by Rudyard Kipling
- Lines written on a Bank-note by Robert Burns
- Lost Delight
- Станислав Востоков – Не хочется отцу и маме
- Иида Дакоцу – Сквозь зимнюю мглу
- Minstrels by William Wordsworth
- Олег Григорьев – Вечером девочка Мила
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).
