Rainbow Fish

I will wait for the bland brown fishes.

I will catch

food for my body

with the world’s old wiles.

I will sit patiently on a bank of earth.

But the rainbow fish

will leap from the stream of life

to shimmer like an image in my lap.

Then you may have my hook and line and net.

We will be splash of shine in amber ripples.

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My heart’s a cup

that’s filled above its edges.

The rounded surface

will not last for long.

Soon I will move

and there will come cascading

torrents of love.

Do not do me the wrong

of thinking those sweet floods

to you belong.

My heart flows over

every year in May,

and you,

my handsome friend,

are simply in the way.          (1957)

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In the chamber of patience,

my body curls,

question mark of silence,

crescent in the moonless dark,

(welcoming night-winds’

mockery and caress,

the teasing answer

of shiver-of-touch)

a listening ear

to whispered promise of fullness,

young arc on the spiral of myself.

Loneliness lies at my side, a sister

who rustles, turning in her sleep;

and yearning is a cat

that yawns with a stretch,

exciting

even in repose.

© Tamara Rasmussen 2018