February 11: Poem
Bianca Cockrell
Early on, uncertain, when we had
those few stolen clouded days along
a cold shore, in a gloomy house
an angle of sunlight shone in
for a moment through the windows and warmed us.
But with you for our secret while
that afternoon I lost my voice; I was
bewildered by you, made other by you,
and couldn't make, for that hour,
any sound at all, much less speak.
Now it seems to me I had to change
to become who I needed to be to be with you.
Now it seems to me that I needed to begin
over again from a time before I could speak.
Now it seems to me it was also through you
that then words came back to me.
Maybe it was so I could love you.
Maybe it was so I could say to you that I love you.
Maybe it was so I could say what I meant, to anyone.
---
Reginald Gibbons, Maybe It Was So (1991)
--