What it costs
Now it costs to say
I will survive, now when
my words coat my clenched
teeth with blood, now
when I have been yanked
off love like a diver
whose hose is cut.
I push against
the dizzying onslaught
of heavy dark water.
Up or down? While
the heart kicks
like a strangled rabbit
and the lungs buckle
like poor balloons:
I will survive.
I will lift the leaden
coffin lid of the surface
and thrust my face
into the air.
I will feel the sun’s
rough tongue on my face.
Then I’ll start swimming
toward the coast
that must somewhere
blur the horizon
with wheeling birds.
Marge Piercy
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