5. The Acknowledgment

Waves breaking in darkness,

a crowd of shadows,

severe hand on my back,

pushing me down,

that’s what you want,

to be held down, to be forced,

of course it sounds ugly,

but that’s the difference

between the interior

and the limit of saying;

the mouth won’t make

what the spirit knows,

so say it roughly

or not at all: to be made

to receive, which I did,

gladly. My pleasure.

And the towering man

bent down and took my face

in his big hand,

looked directly into my eyes

and said, “Thank you,”

as if I had honored him,

in some fashion,

through my submission.

And in truth that was what

I liked best, the being acknowledged

—that was the difficult thing.