At three, living in the rented
house on Winette Street, I strayed
three blocks away, and the word lost
crashed in my ears like the sea
until a neighbor led me back
to my house and my mother.
When Doctor Clark telephoned
about the hourglass-shaped lesion
in my liver, I was sixty-three
and lost. Jane and I lay
on the painted bed weeping
and hugging. Only the body
of the other—rocking,
hopeless, wet-faced—provided us house.