When He Fell
Posted Tuesday, April 23, 2002, at 5:20 PM ETHear Carol Muske-Dukes reading this poem here.
When he fell, strangers ran to him.
Strangers called for help, lifted
his body and carried it. Then strangers
cut him, emptied him. Their ideas
of death determined when I would
touch him again. Their ideas of death
closed door after door between us,
altered his face, altered his presence—
violated the contract, the marriage,
took away even his wounded heart.
When he was at last delivered to me,
I was no longer myself—just as he
was no longer within identity. They
had taken everything from us. Authority—
everywhere I turned. Just as he and I
once thought we were authorities over
our own lives, our work, our sense of
mortality, imagination—oh, and that
"sense of loss" that predicated everything—
you know, what we called our personal lives.
on the Fray
Facebook
MySpace
Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUpon
Is the Democrats' Health Care Fight a "Prisoner's Dilemma" or a "Battle of the Sexes"?
Sorry, the Iranian Regime Isn't Going To Collapse Anytime Soon
How Vegetative Patients Really Communicate With the Scientists Who Scan Their Brains
The Minstrel Origins of the Phrase "Who Dat?"
Why We Shouldn't Bother Cleaning Up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
No Director Has Done More With Rubble Than Roberto Rossellini
