Wave

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.
Credit

From Trace of One, by Joanna Goodman, published by the University of Iowa Press. Copyright © 2002 by Joanna Goodman. All rights reserved.