I Have Been Cut In Two.

I Lay There Silently, Hoarding My Small Dignity. I Did Not Ask About The Gate Or The Closet. I Did Not Question The Bedtime Ritual Where, On The Cold Bathroom Tiles, I Was Spread Out Daily And Examined For Flaws. I Did Not Know That My Bones, Those Solids, Those Pieces Of Sculpture Would Not Splinter.

The Summer Has Seized You, As When, Last Month In Amalfi, I Saw Lemons As Large As Your Desk-side Globe-that Miniature Map Of The World-and I Could Mention, Too, The Market Stalls Of Mushrooms And Garlic Bugs All Engorged. Or I Even Think Of The Orchard Next Door, Where The Berries Are Done And The Apples Are Beginning To Swell. And Once, With Our First Backyard,i Remember I Planted An Acre Of Yellow Beans We Couldn't Eat.

No One To Hate Except The Slim Fish Of Memory That Slides In And Out Of My Brain.

I Am Younger Each Year At The First Snow. When I See It, Suddenly, In The Air, All Little And White And Moving; Then I Am In Love Again And Very Young And I Believe Everything.

The Witch's Life" When I Was A Child There Was An Old Woman In Our Neighborhood Whom We Called The Witch. All Day She Peered From Her Second Story Window From Behind The Wrinkled Curtains And Sometimes She Would Open The Window And Yell: Get Out Of My Life! She Had Hair Like Kelp And A Voice Like A Boulder. I Think Of Her Sometimes Now And Wonder If I Am Becoming Her.