A Certain Knowing

And how would the daffodils
know what I sing,
their heads tucked and cowering
under a gray bombardment of rain?

How would one memorize
my dreams, congealed as they are
into red clots and concealed
in the river that runs through
the very center of Hell?

His love lasted a season
though he still stays the road.

He thinks I will cringe, bend
like the beaten flowers, hide
when his voice becomes thunder,
bursting me open and draining me
until my body is as empty
as old battlefields.

His face is a stone I long to crush.
I want to lie in its pieces,
hands cut and bleeding;
rain, my baptismal font, and
daffodils lifting around me,
my yellow sunrise of hope.

Pris Campbell
©2005

Page Still Under Construction

Return to Homepage
Return to Poetry Index II