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 fruitily 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. Fist my mind in your hand. What are you now? When I was fourteen, I had dreams of suicide, and I stood at a steep window, at sunset, hoping toward death: if the light had not melted clouds and plains 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.

Note: This poem came to my mind earlier this morning when I stepped out of my garret to buy milk for breakfast, into a brilliant morning - the "morning shone" - that had a distinct taste of fall, and a street filled with babbling school children, and I suppose with a wish indicated in the refrain of this poem, "Take my hand. Speak to me."