Not one motion her gesture could I forget
The pretties bag lady I ever met
Pushing her cart in the rain!
Then, gathering plastic and glass
She watched the day
Not hour by hour but pain by pain.

I was a basket filled with holes
And she was the sand I tried to hold
That ran out behind me
As I swung at some invisible hand.

I was dead, then alive
She was like wine turned to water then turned
back to wine
You can pour us out- we won't mind
As stratched around the mouth of the glass:
"my life is no longer mine."

If your still looking a blnket, sweetie,
I'm sorry I'm no sort of fabric.
But if you need a tailor
Take your torne shirt
Stumble up my stairs and
mumble your pitiful prayers
And in your tangled knoted sleep
Our midnight needles go to work
Until all comfort and fear flows in one river
Down in the shop by the mirror where you
see yourself whole- and it makes you shiver.

I was dead, then alive
She was like wine turned to water then turned
back to wine
You can pour us out- we won't mind
As stratched around the mouth of the glass:
"my life is no longer mine."

Even the wind lay still
Our essence was fire and cold and movement;
And if they ask us for the sign of the
Father in you
Tell them: movement and repose.



by raft