I was helping you die.

I said
You’re pure now,
Empty, made of stars.

You said
I’m looking for
My eye,
I’m looking for my breast,
My favorite leg.

You said
I’m looking for
The dancing princess,
My stolen wife.

I was helping you out of your skin
Out of your pain
Handing you over to the light.

You said
Tomorrow I’ll know my mother’s secrets
I’ll gamble with giants
I’ll meet my poems,
Dark holes of fury and sweetness.

I said
You stopped wars
You cleaned the earth
You freed trapped miners.

You were always pregnant
I said
You were always dreaming
You were always desperate
You healed our wounds
God knows what held you together.

I said
You are droplets, you are gold-dust
You are an egg now,
Ready with wings and bells.

You said
I’m floating over jeweled barricades

I’m turning into everybody,
Everything.

-- Robert David Cohen
Panama, 25 March 2006