II: Mother, Remember Me

Mother, remember me.
I am your son,
the one who was so close
before the passion died.
I was the one who broke you first in birth,
who sucked first at your breast,
the one for whom you first awoke
when he cried.

Mother, remember me.
Now it's all ice and glass
and smiles and conversation,
but you are my beginning
and then it was mental flame.
We're still alive. Why should there be an ending?
Why can't it be the same?

Have you forgotten
how you pressed me to your side
in the close warmth of your bed?
Have you forgotten
the intimate laughter
over things done between us
or things unsaid?

O my lover, my dear, forgive me!
I had forgotten
that children grow and parents too.
When ties are cut and memories are broken
we pay a ghostly tribute in what's spoken
to what we cannot do.

Mother, is there in you what there is in me?
I wear a mantle of sociability
but there is iron, molten iron
whirling at the core
and my heart quakes and cracks when I recall
how little we can love each other any more.