From Theory of Flight (1935)

Effort at Speech Between Two People

Poem via American Studies at the University of Virginia.

Speak to me.		
Take my hand.       
What are you now?
I will tell you all. I will conceal nothing.
When I was three, a little child read a story about a rabbit who died, 
in the story, and I crawled under a chair: a pink rabbit: 
it was my birthday, and a candle burnt a sore spot on my finger, 
and I was told to be happy.

Oh grow to know me. I am not happy. I will be open: now I am 
thinking of white sails against a sky like music,
like glad horns blowing, and birds tilting, and an arm about me.
There was one I loved, who wanted to live, sailing.

Speak to me. 
Take my hand.
What are you now?
When I was nine, I was fruitfully sentimental,
fluid   :   and my widowed aunt played Chopin,
and I bent my head on the painted woodwork, and wept.
I want now to be close to you. I would link 
the minutes of my days close, somehow, to your days.

I am not happy. I will be open.
I have liked lamps in evening corners, and quiet poems.
There has been fear in my life. Sometimes I speculate
On what a tragedy his life was, really.

Take my hand.    
First my mind in your hand.       
What are you now?
When I was fourteen, I had a dreams of suicide,
and I stood at a steep window, at sunset, hoping toward
death : if the light had not melted clouds and pains to beauty,
if light had not transformed that day, I would have leapt.
I am unhappy. I am lonely. Speak to me.

I will be open. I think he never loved me:
he loved the bright beaches, the little lips of foam
that ride small waves, he loved the veer of gulls:
he said with a gay mouth: I love you. Grow to know me.

What are you now? If we could touch one another,
if these our separate entities could come to grips,
clenched like a Chinese puzzle ... yesterday
I stood in a crowded street that was live with people,
and no one spoke a word, and the morning shone.
Everyone silent, moving... Take my hand.    
Speak to me.