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Sport 26: Autumn 2001

Poem For Dorothy

page 179

Poem For Dorothy

Dorothy calls to tell me she misses me still,
six months on; also, her daughter is dead.
She offers it thus, blunt and plain. So typical.
And I say the things people say.

Years ago, I thought I knew about grief.
My own daughter's coffin looked like an oversized shoebox,
tossed onto the back seat of the hearse—
shoes, possibly, for a clown.
That's what I thought, watching that box go down.

But Dorothy's telling me now about her son-in-law.
He won't take her calls. And I can just see him,
like a dark balloon, or possibly a cloud, set adrift in kitchens,
in supermarkets, PTA meetings—nudging along,
throwing long grey shadows this way, that ways, everywhere,
and shying away at the mere touch of a hand.

It's a hard way of sorrowing. Unless he's simply waiting
for some view to appear that he can bear to see.
Or else he may need exclusive rights. She's his sad scoop,
and grief's not an easy thing to own. It's secondary, chronic,
contagious; either it's kept under strict control
or else it's shared around, like the common cold.