Desdichada

For that you never acknowledged me, I acknowledge

the spring’s yellow detail, the every drop of rain,

the anonymous unacknowledged men and women.

The shine as it glitters in our child’s wild eyes,

one o’clock at night. This river, this city,

the years of the shadow on the delicate skin

of my hand, moving in time.

Disinherited, annulled, finally disacknowledged

and all of my own asking. I keep that wild dimension

of life and making and the spasm

upon my mouth as I say this word of acknowledge

to you forever. Ewig. Two o’clock at night.

II.

While this my day and my people are a country not yet born

it has become an earth I can

acknowledge. I must. I know what the

disacknowledgment does. Then I do take you,

but far under consciousness, knowing

that under under flows a river wanting

the other : to go open-handed in Asia,

to cleanse the tributaries and the air, to make for making,

to stop selling death and its trash, pour plastic down men’s throats,

to let this child find, to let men and women find,

knowing the seeds in us all. They do say Find.

I cannot acknowledge it entire. But I will.

A beginning, this moment, perhaps, and you.

III.

Death flowing down past me, past me, death

marvelous, filthy, gold,

in my spine in my sex upon my broken mouth

and the whole beautiful mouth of the child;

shedding power over me

death

if I acknowledge him.

Leading me

in my own body

at last in the dance.

Source: Breaking Open (Random House Inc., 1973)