Grief and love

I too know power deep in the limbo of dreams.
I too watch a ship and want, an eagle and want.
I'll never be a princess feeding swans.
No golden bird is singing in my fingers.

My joy, like yours, is snatched from tenement mornings
and wrung till it cracks in my hands,
a pitiful rejoicing in a sand box, a sun-patch more.
Yes, I stand in hallways gathering valleys in my apron,
yet, scarcely daring another spring.

O honey, I hoped to be a butterfly fluttering in your pocket,
but now you flood just one cell of my mind,
still hating your walls, still half-dreaming
of my bringing you a brother, a young son.

Yesterday I passed your stoop.
I saw an old woman tousling children's hair
with a drifting, mechanical hand.
An old woman already dreading the final apples,
the last rain.