Friend
Friend I need your hand every morning
but anger and beauty and hope
these roses make one rose.
Friend I need a hand every evening
but anger and hope and beauty
are three roses
that make one rose.
Let’s fix our bed it’s in splinters
and I want to stay all year.
Let’s fix our bed it’s in splinters
and I want to stay all year.
Did you hear what that woman on Grafton Street was saying?
You won’t be killed today.
We don’t even know we’re born.
From Door in the Mountain. Copyright © 2004 by Jean Valentine. Reprinted with permission of Wesleyan University Press.
Jean Valentine
The author of many collections of poetry, Jean Valentine has received such honors as the National Book Award, the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, and the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets.