I Look For You

By Jennifer Ferraro

Ilook for you in the reeds near my house
in the swamp water’s blackness…
For a lick of your venom of bees and thorns
I would live like a thrown out beggar child
I would tear myself inside out
for the blossoming buds of your sizzling sap…
I look for you in my mouth of guided birds
in corners where you are busy dancing mazurkas
on the wooden table between my burning worlds…
You dance Shiva you dance Shakti
you dance kundalini mambo cha-cha
you dance knife tongue torso
flaring in the electric night…
I look for you in the lines of infants' hands
because you are the blueprint of something beyond me
as I extinguish as I exile myself
to the simpering scathing softness
that has no eyes that plunges toward the pit of love
so hard it is blind
but you oh you who are weaned on ghosts of tenderness…
I have looked for you among the dead gold reeds near the ink dark swamp
where I have lived for so long
where I have lived for so long
and sought your face