—for Jean Valentine (1934-2020)
The basement, green and cold behind three doors: here was
the middle one
which you know.
In whitewashed walls, your hand had curved around its pen.
It was your kitchen where you draw your brows
and the phone rang: your daughter.
She wanted you to go to an appointment to check your head.
You laughed. I remember things, you said, I’m sitting here with.
Said my name, but it was a question. It was the night
we became again human: though tired, though old, though you did not
call back
through the whole night, though I had to be
in a different room, “chewing up the mirror.”
In the morning, you had a gift for us: a compass on a long chain
which you wore when you skipped ahead of me, descending into the station.Discussion about this post
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