Foe ...

Looking at you, still.

Don't know what to make of it:

     I used to shake

          for the sake of it,

thinking of you. I will

     Never forget the fight you laid

          Out, which made me choose

               what I only half-knew

     I conceived: I came

          To love, for you challenged me.

               When the road lay in peace,

                    I cared my least, for every

          length came delicately

               Safe- and free-seeming.

                    Your teeth set truth

                         in this, my eyelid skin,

               my womb-float dreaming.

*

What I am now, and here, was first

     Against your press,

          and then, God bless it, for

my kin – for better, or worse.

     You had me thinking up

          To the point of Still:

               faces on hills and all not

     turning toward my voice. “What

          Friend was I, you corpses!?”

               You had me saying

                    to the gray beyond,

          where the pulse divorces,

               Where the pressure elides

                    Its intended channel.

                         Your hands drove me,

               standing in line, bold, beside

                    Men (who 'til then I'd never

                         Tried to trace), before

                              a halldoor's bell, a child's song

                    that our thorns kept clever

                         And full-flushed, playing

                              On these open hills.

                                   My arms – quilts inside – grew

                         their snarlingest nails baying

                              Through your challenge, near these

                                   Soft and precious

                                        sounds, trenching footholds

                              round what I dreamed I'd miss –

                                   Only because you came.

                                        And now you lie

                                             pumpless, dying (un-

                                   intended) this field, same

                                        As I may: gladly.

                                             “Who was waiting

                                                  to soft-sing, warm inside

                                        your arm-branched chest, my Foe?”

                                                                 (I miss you somewhat badly.)