who came through the sudden death of my stepfather
\n and the fire from the wood stove, ready
\n to love the house as she never had before;<\/p>\n
who went to the dumpster after the workmen left to carry
\n the blistered chairs, and the books, swollen
\n by fire hoses, and the childhood dresses of her grown
\n daughter – all back to the house where they belonged;<\/p>\n
who carefully saved each newspaper and magazine
\n and circular and unopened bill addressed to it;<\/p>\n
who walked through the stacks of them, and the bags
\n of clothes and empty cans, and the disused lamps
\n and flowerpots, armed only with her cane;<\/p>\n
who kept her door closed to anyone who didn’t understand
\n her daily, thoughtful housekeeping, speaking in a firm
\n voice to neighbors, home-health nurses, tax assessors,
\n and me through the screen of her bathroom window;<\/p>\n
who imagined a family to bring into the house, handymen
\n just like her husband, and a gardener, more like
\n her daughter, she said, than her real daughter;<\/p>\n
who never noticed the work left undone as she wandered
\n with them in the yard, past the collapsing fence,
\n and the buckling outbuildings, and the gardens
\n where morning glories and vetch bloomed;<\/p>\n
who, loving the house with her whole mind, did not see how
\n bereft it looked with its cracked walk and dipping roof;<\/p>\n
who ignored the wishes of the doctors in acute care
\n and returned to live among the pathways inside
\n her house just as it was, her greatest wish;<\/p>\n
who called for it from her bed in her small, shared room
\n at the nursing home with a longing so deep, I felt
\n the blow of each stroke that undid her love for it.\n
Follow McNair’s thinking about this poem through his revisions of it. (Line changes are highlighted in yellow; revised line breaks are indicated by yellow verticals.)<\/span><\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t\t