Talk of the Heart — A Young Girl ...

Talk of the Heart

I asked you, Mama:
of what might you be dreaming,
in your long pensiveness
across the phantoms of the dark??
What dust-gray desolation
does night bind about your heart?

* * *

Your tenderness... Mama!
Where might your thought be wandering—
those hills that lie between
wakefulness and slumber,
the hour the body sinks beneath the blanket,
drowned in soft warmth,
gasping as limb strikes against limb—
and restful sleep refuses,
and sleeplessness clamors in the bed?!

* * *

I would give myself for you... Mama!
Could it be that, like me,
the axis of your dim, becalmed dreams,
in your pensiveness and the drifting of fancy,
is some obscure yearning?
The clasp of an arm.... and a mouth?!