How is it, tell me, that this new self can be -- and so quickly? God knows, none is the lord of his own face or ever was. So what accord of rearranging nuclei changes me into this alien now so familiarly staring from the bathroom mirror? What word reforms my mind and all its wretched hoard of worn-out feelings suddenly fresh and free? Woman, I'm not sure of much. Are you? More and more I believe the age demands incertitude. I am no one. Yet your hands, touching, word-like, can make a person. Who is the strange new myself? Woman, do we know the I of love that you in love bestow? Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MOUNTAIN VALLEY by MALCOLM COWLEY FOR OUR BETTER GRACES by JAMES GALVIN I LOOKED FOR LIFE AND DID A SHADOW SEE by JAMES GALVIN MA LADY'S LIPS AM LIKE DE HONEY (NEGRO LOVE SONG) by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON VASHTI by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON |