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.

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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 12 Number 2, on page 36
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