Tell the truth: no key appeared in your mouth, no sound like mum, which wouldn't help anyway. Give me a word to get through the night. Something spontaneous, fluid: see the hand's unintended imprint on the shore, fireworks dissolving into the black sky-- Try now. Ripple. Yes. Put the two of us in a boat on the gray river; keep rowing in a circle while on the hazy banks clumps of grass swarm and echo the rhythm of words we had once spoken: after this, mistake me for someone else. Sleep no more. Wave. Wave. That's love enough.
From Trace of One, by Joanna Goodman, published by the University of Iowa Press. Copyright © 2002 by Joanna Goodman. All rights reserved.