Names, Spoken Aloud.

When you turn sixty, a year away
From sixty one. Say my name aloud.

Say my name with all the years of
Love, rolled up, tightly in a ball of
Burnt ash.

Say my name with rage and want
Mixed together.

And gushing like blood in purple
Lid veins, my memory will arrive.
Twenty one was your age when
I deserted you. Or twenty two.

Clench those wrinkled two fists
Scarred by abandonment and age.
And ask yourself.

Your memory will not serve you
And you will sob in silence.
Your bleeding heart will whisper
Forty years I have loved you
Another forty I will.

When you turned twenty two
I said your name aloud.