Meeting

Conrad AikenWhy do I look at you?
Why do I touch you?
What do I seek in you, woman,
That I should to meet you again?
Why must I sound once more
your abysmal anothingnees,
And draw up only pain?
Hard, hard, I stare at you watery ayes;
yet am not convinced,
Now no more than ever
before,
That they are only two mirrors
reflecting the sky’s blank light,
That, and nothing more.
And I press my body against your
body, as thoungh I hoped to break
Clean through to another sphere;
And I strive to speak to you with
a speech beyond my speech,
In which all things are clear;
Till exhausted I drown once more
in your abysmal nothingnees,
And the cold nothignees
of me:
You, laughing and crying
in this ridiculous room,
With your had upon my knee;
Crying because you think me perverse
and unhappy;
and laughing To find our love so
strange;
Our eyes fixed hard on each other
in a last blind desperate hope
That the whole world might change.

Conrad Aiken