Twenty-One Love Poems XX

That conversation we were always on the edge of having,
runs on in my head.

At night the Hudson tremblesin New Jersey light.
polluted water yet reflecting, even sometimes, the moonand I discern a woman I loved.

Drowning in secrets,
fear wound round her throatand choking her like hair.

And this is she with whom I tried to speak, whose hurt, expressive headturning aside from pain,
is dragged down deeperwhere it cannot hear me,
and soon I shall know I was talking to my own soul.
This is poem XX, from Adrienne Rich's Twenty-One Love Poems collection, written between 1974-1976. These were originally published as a complete collection but were later re-published and included as part of another collection of works, written between 1974-1977, called The Dream Of A Common Language.

Twenty-One Love Poems and The Floating Poem, (un-numbered) can all be found here at oldpoetry.