Negotiations - Adrienne Rich

Someday if someday comes we will agree
that trust is not about safety
that keeping faith is not about deciding
to clip our fingernails exactly
to the same length or wearing
a uniform that boasts our unanimity

Someday if someday comes we'll know
the difference between liberal laissez-faire
pluralism and the way you cut your hair
and the way I clench my hand
against my cheekbone
both being possible gestures of defiance

Someday if there's a someday we will
bring food, you'll say I can't eat what you've brought
I'll say Have some in the name of our
trying to be friends, you'll say What about you?
We'll taste strange meat and we'll admit
we've tasted stranger

Someday if someday ever comes we'll go
back and reread those poems and manifestos
that so enraged us in each other's hand
I'll say,  But damn,  you wrote it so I
couldn't write it off    You'll say
I read you always, even when I hated you



[From:
Rich, A. (1989) Time's power: poems 1985-1988. New York: Norton. p ]

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