Secret Sea

                                  Beloved, now we are children of God . . .
                                                                                              —I John 3:2

This morning a child offered me water
& a little bit of bread. Light buried the

shed in which I have hidden my whole
life & I heard, very softly, a new name.

It happens every morning. Once upon
a time I bustled for bread behind thin

glass in a fashionable section of a port
city whose bloody laundry was always

being shipped to a secret sea. I am still
learning to sleep without shame: in my

dreams bits of children float to heaven,
while a lost world chants my old name.

Copyright © 2009 Nathan Parker All rights reserved
from Colorado Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission