On Atonement
Your silence today is a pond where drowned things live
I want to see raised dripping and brought into the sun.
It’s not my own face I see there, but other faces,
even your face at another age.
Whatever’s lost there is needed by both of us -
a watch of old gold, a water-blurred fever chart,
a key…Even the silt and pebbles of the bottom
deserve their glint of recognition. I fear this silence,
this inarticulate life. I’m waiting
for a wind that will gently open this sheeted water
for once and show me what I can do
for you, who have often made the unnameable
nameable for others, even for me.
- Part IX, Complete 21 Love Poems, by Adrienne Rich
Note: Unedited
Where do you end and where do I begin?
Your voice on the other line; it still haunts me.
The memory of you; I can’t give up.
Will it end?
The only way to let go is to hate you, but I can’t.
Because I still think of you.
