Gypsy

There are red-haired Gypsies, you know.
Have you ever seen a blackbird against a pink sky,
or a silver ring balanced on its edge beside the bed?

Red is the fox, the bad wound, the roadside house
abandoned for years,
but once the first home of the then-young, now gone on.

What I wanted to tell you was this:
how I kept a wasp in a jar--
how it beat itself against the hard glass air of its artificial world
until, out of pity, I set it free
and it stung me in my throat.

Ever since then,
there is never enough water,
but always enough anger;
I have sent cardinals into your dreams to be my messengers,
to try to explain
that my silence is my love for you.

Now, today,
the wasp's sad mate has come
as I was gathering lilies,
to sting me on my wrist, just above the onyx bracelet I wear
but which did not protect me.
Her sting is harsh, and now her pain is mine
and it is merciless.

Her revenge makes my eyes water,
and forces my singing,
though some would call it moaning.
Our house will disintegrate,
or burn,
and it will have been my doing.

I don't expect to find, ever again,
a soul that can reach me like yours has.
With my silence broken, any answer I might receive is drowned
by my own endless grinding shrieks;

still, I weave a bright red message through all of it--
come back.
forgive me.
dig into the wasps' nest and find my heart.
_______