Amanda's Bedside
At the end as at the beginning,it's always something new;
changes come as often as fresh linen
and the monitoring of functions
and the shifting of cushions
in response to cries
insistent and incoherent.
The love we feel, too,
is strangely the same,
both beings ushered into some kind of life
with us helpless to give
or take away the assurance each needs.
So we sing and pray and cajole;
we talk on like idiots
not knowing what they hear
or if their sounds are at all
addressed to us, or else
to unseen vigilants hovering nearby.
We are in the painful position
of railway conductors who
can't get passengers to tell us
if they are coming or going, let alone
where they are bound.
We only know that in either direction
lies oblivion, so we stand here like clowns
kissing and waving.
Poetry by Mark Aikins
Read 711 times
Written on 2006-12-31 at 04:16
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