Do you even recognise my face

Poem by Marc Aupiais

I wonder if you know my name,
Foreign as it is?

Can you speak the words of it,
Do you know my air over tongue, and lips,
Like some harmony, a tune now strung,

Do you know the water in my veins?
Is my name on your tongue, heart, inner soul?
Do you remember me, or am I but one,
Like the thousands whose lives I change,
Names easily forgotten?

I wonder if you know my name,
If you know my language,
Or the foreign land I'm from!

I wish you would speak to me,
Or of me, though you do, is it enough for you and for me?
I wonder if you recognise me,
Dear wife, the man who shares your bed at night,
Who kisses you at wake and sleep,

Who lives to please you day and night?

I wonder if you recognise me,
Who lives and is sustained in you,
Who needs, and is dead without you!

Yet, in fact,
You do know me,
And my fears are unfounded, I pray, and play!

Yet, I wish you'd say you knew me too,
For I have known you also!

Speak my name in my sleep,
Yet not only in my dreams,

Not only in the shadowed land,
The intimate land of us!

Yet, I know my tears, those deadly fear,
Have to yet be unfounded.

Yet, what if you were to speak of me,
And tell me true, not faded.

Even then I fear, you may speak of another mistaken!
After all, my name is foreign, my language slightly altered!

Speak to me, not mistaken!