You have been aching a long time,
a lifetime, an endless sonorous afternoon
in a city of bells.
All that calling of the faithful to faith 
has left you empty and longing for fill. 

For fear of your wanting,
you spill down into the reeds
of a river you hold inside 
and hide there — pull
the old movie trick, breathing
through the slender stem.
So long under the water,
breathing in near-panic
and praying no one will see you
and drag you away.

Late in the day after all the bells
are silent, you come soaked 
into town.  No one will look
at you — at least, not at your eyes;
they stare plenty at the trail behind you, though,

the drabble of leaves, the wet stains
on the road.  Strange: you’re still dripping
after two miles walk from the river.  
You realize you’re a sponge

and at last you are not just full
but overfull and all it took to get there
was nearly drowning and
abandoning your home.

Sorry for this;
sorry to stand hard behind it, against you:  no.
I’m keeping my chest closed to you.

No.  You flow your own if you need to
sail on something, be your own boat
on your own river.
No.  I’m not a red port.
No.  You have not cost yourself enough
to turn around and buy me whole.  No.

No.  No blood song for you here.
I love you and love you, you know
I love you, but no I won’t sing you
another blood song.  You want too many
from me.  You drain me drain me.

No. Stop mating as if you were dying tomorrow.
You look stout enough for another ten decades
to me.  You have all the necessary clothes
and shoes and such good cheeks and
kiss fattened lips.  I think
you’re a whole flood wating to happen so
till you open the perfect smile and get it messy
with a sloppy blood song of your own,

you ain’t going nowhere,
at least not
on current
you steal
from me.