certainly very bad

a prayer

joy is not all that i have to give.
i have more than joy in me--more than happiness--
more than cloudless days, more than night
soft and liquid with moonlight.

fingers deep in earth. dirt to bear the dirt.
fire flickering on stone walls and a strange wide-berthed mouth
calling strange cries. small heavy eyes beteemed
with strange needs--i have more than life in me.


but i hope i gave you joy. even
a little: smiles like weak plum blossoms and a vapid laugh.
pieces, half-pieces of my parts--
embroidery, unmade easily, but yours...

my brain is hemmed with shadows. soul, heart,
all parts, hemmed in, woven in. sickness, wrong, shame,
fecund, sopped with overtones: a wail a dog would hear. but
this would have been a finer gift

than what i gave.
perhaps, though, less appropriate.