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.

Now I am just an elderly lady who is full of spleen, who humps around greater Boston in a God-awful hat, who never lived and yet outlived her time, hating men and dogs and Democrats.

the marriage twists, holds firm, a sailor's knot.

women are born twice.

All day I've built a lifetime and now the sun sinks to undo it.

Give me your skin as sheer as a cobweb, let me open it up and listen in and scoop out the dark.

The trouble with therapy is that it makes life go backwards.