To by Franz Wright

To

Before you were I loved you

and when you were born

and when you took your first step

Although I did not know

good luck I want to whisper

lone penguin keep sturdily waddling

in the direction of those frozen

   mountains sister

of desolate sanctity

I want to scream

Although I did not know

I loved you later on

as just a weedy thing

a little skeleton I loved

Both long pre-you a child myself

and as a man in retrospect

I loved and I was there

while they were raping you

I loved although

like God

that’s all I could do.