That
puzzled mouth. I remember
how
a year ago on this same bed
I
was relieved as you expelled our child.
Your
throat sucked up and bit the air and made it
scream
for its life while I crooned to you.
Now
again your body is rising angrily,
crying
incontinent in the throes of love
that
the day be burst, the supplicant panting
interesting
me as if I were outside,
a
surgeon, listening.
And
I have both times
been
at sea. From a gulf-tempest comes
the
noise of living hulks breaking like pods
and
that fierce cause, the sympathetic sea
intoning
as its wrecks explode ashore.
May
I make similar sounds at all your labours.
