Twenty-One Love Poems XX

XX

That conversation we were

always on the edge of having,

runs on in my head.
At night the Hudson trembles

in New Jersey light.
polluted water yet reflecting,

even sometimes, the moon
and I discern a woman I loved.

Drowning in secrets,

fear wound round her throat
and choking her like hair.

And this is she with whom I tried to speak,

whose hurt, expressive head
turning aside from pain,

is dragged down deeper
where it cannot hear me,
and soon I shall know I was talking to my own soul.

This is poem XX, from Adrienne Rich’s Twenty-One Love Poems collection, written between 1974-1976. These were originally published as a complete collection but were later re-published and included as part of another collection of works, written between 1974-1977, called The Dream Of A Common Language.

Twenty-One Love Poems and The Floating Poem, (un-numbered) can all be found here at oldpoetry.