SUZANNE PAOLA
The Two
The two jrom whose bodies you jormed me
in the limits oj time.
- Augustine
No bird shrilled newly that new morning.
Nothing was lit that had not been lit, when I came.
Only one man and one woman listened with a turning heart.
The air beat with the sound of new voices.
Flesh
&
spirit
My father held me in one hand.
I remember learning to name, Adam's labor.
His labor wasn't life. That was easy in the walled garden.
But the making of sounds
owl, hawk, cat
and releasing.
Each word a cell into which just one spirit fit .
We called my life
the little tiny sorrow.
My father held me in one gloved hand.
Male
&
female
he created them -
the father the benevolent absence
the mother the presence that can never give enough
and the children behind, the dutiful and the lost.
Sometimes we'd drive to the bungalow my grandfather built
with its own well, and well water so foul
only we could drink it. Its flavor
rust
&
rot
and our thirst ran pure
for such water. The way the mind thirsts
and memory slips up from the deep with every sulfurous
draught, and we drink. And say
it is not enough.
At six I dreamed my parents left me at that house
as the gulls glided, and I screamed myself awake.
Can it be that we hunger even for this.
