poem of the moment #4

I knew you
before we both knew ourselves.
before your wounds had healed,
when your blood, true and strong,
flowed from your veins just as
thickly as it now pumps to the surface of your skin.
we were both more honest then.
tossed dignity aside,
too overwhelmed by love and life and
hormones
to conceal our soft bellies (fat with mother's milk).

and yet still we hid
from
sneering peers
strangers' gropes
fathers' arms
from
loving ourselves.

Then, then, I knew you.
And loved you for reflecting me,
whom i could not.
and for, within, the You i saw.

Loved you for the moth, wet and curled, wrapped within the
delicate protection
of
concentrated resolve.

I see you've got a wing out now, and a leg or two.



Good.

Me too.

So I'll know You, too, when we both emerge,
triumphant in birth and ready
to flutter,
and
depart.