By the Pond II

 

      So here I stand by the pond,
      Peer into the murky green
      Where my beloved ghosts live on.
      One love in every verse,
      And others go unsaid.

      May this crudeness be forgiven.

Monica
  Deep down at the bottom,
  The little coal-haired girl
  With sea-blue eyes
  Lived in my heart alone
  My made-up girl
  Made-up friend

Elisabeth
  Village mayor’s baby girl
  Her wild red hair stirs the waters
  As she rides her giant horse
  Across the depths of the pond

Monica actual
  On the first day of school
  She smithereened my blue glass gift
  And my minute soul
  To eye-coloured shards

Grit
  First long kisses from
  The ash-haired girl with her
  Bewildering scent of cedarwood.
  Asterix was better. I was eleven.

Gitti
  Strong and relentless
  Adolescent love and pain and love
  For half a decade we taught each other
  How to make our bodies sing.

Beate
  And then 3000 miles away,
  Proud and beautiful,
  She bore me a daughter
  I was young. Too young
  Too young,

The ephemeral poetess - Sónia
  Beauty and words
  Words and beauty
  Our bodies sang electric
  And then mutual betrayal.

But so, so much of the pond
  Is she, Inês, the world itself
  In a single woman.
  So much love given
  So much love taken
  I thank you with my tears
  And a broken-china heart for
  Our years, my years
  So, so much of my life
  I have become you

      So now I stand by the pond
      As my tears fall into the still
      Darkness of my pasts.
      And from among all these ghostly faces
      I try to untangle my own.
      But you YOU alone,
      Who now walks with me
      Stands with me
      Can see my real shape.

      Manuela.

      Hand in hand
      Head against head
      We sing the body and
      We sing the soul.

Come what may.

Manuela.