If You Should Care For Me

She 'gan him soft to shrive. She asked him, What
black ladder must we climb? How sere my grass?
How ravaged is my valley?
                                            You and I,
we seek perfection, mix a brew of horse
manure, of menstrual blood and soil dug from
a dead love's grave.
                              The moths flew from their mouths.
We heard them say you too shall one day be
like us.
          My most familiar friend, please call me
by my nighest name. We heard the sound
of blankets being woven. No one knows
the mush inside my heart. We pray and hope
in vain to wade unstained across the foul
and muddy river.
                                We will never be
perfected and our margins never meet.

Copyright © 2007 Lacy Schutz All rights reserved
from Colorado Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission