Moving from Cheer to Joy, from Joy to All,
I take a
And add it to my wild rice, my Cornish game hens.
The slacked or shorted, basketed,
Food-gathering
Are selves I overlook. Wisdom, said William James,
Is learning what to overlook. And I am
If that is wisdom.
Yet somehow, as I buy All from these
And the boy takes it to my station wagon,
What I've
Troubles me even if I shut my eyes.
When I was young and miserable and
And poor,
I'd
What all girls wish: to have a husband,
A house and children. Now that I'm old, my
Is womanish:
That the boy putting groceries in my
See me. It bewilders me he doesn't see me.
For so many yearsI was good enough to eat: the world looked at
And its mouth watered. How often they have undressed me,
The eyes of strangers!
And, holding their flesh within my flesh, their
Imaginings within my imagining,
I too have
The chance of life. Now the boy pats my
And we start home. Now I am good.
The last mistaken,
Ecstatic, accidental bliss, the
Happiness that, bursting, leaves upon the
Some soap and water—It was so long ago, back in some
Twenties,
Nineties,
I don't know . . .
Today I
My lovely
Away at school, my sons away at school,
My husband away at work—I wish for them.
The dog, the maid,
And I go through the sure unvarying
At home in them. As I look at my life,
I am
Only that it will change, as I am changing:
I am afraid, this morning, of my face.
It looks at
From the rear-view mirror, with the eyes I hate,
The smile I hate. Its plain, lined
Of gray
Repeats to me: "You're old." That's all,
I'm old.
And yet I'm afraid, as I was at the funeralI went to yesterday.
My friend's cold made-up face, granite among its flowers,
Her undressed, operated-on, dressed
Were my face and body.
As I think of her and I hear her telling
How young I seem;
I am exceptional;
I think of all I have.
But really no one is exceptional,
No one has anything,
I'm anybody,
I stand beside my
Confused with my life, that is commonplace and solitary.
