David Kherdian: The First Night - 2

While you fidgeted by my side
(a strange body beside yours in
sleep), you were suddenly tossed
into the angry words of your
mother: who came, you thought,
to carry you away from our bed
of love.

When I turned against you and
that tide, that threatened to
take you from my side, we awoke
together into each other's eyes,
and I held you trembling and
crying until you named your fear.

2.17.71



This poem has appeared in The Nonny Poems, MacMillan Publishing Co Inc, New York, 1971