More Poems by Cecelia Night Vision Spinning Wheels Wish Drawing Lesson Song for the End of May Without The Visitors More About Cecelia

Cecelia Hagen Passage In his light and airy new house he's writing out directions. I'm dropping off our daughter, heading out to visit a friend. Smart planning, to put pleasure after difficulty, but I don't want to go on to the next step. He draws a line for Lovejoy Street. I see his thighs under the table, strong, meaty, a body I knew as well as I've known any other. His pinky, bent in a high-school football game the year before I met him. His talented hands. Oh there's change, there's nothing else but change, and still I can't adjust, refuse to be easy to be with, even for myself. There are tears on my face as heís making an H for a hospital like any good mapmaker. He says something that requires an answer, looks up, pretends not to notice my crying. When we were married this kind of reaction drove me crazy but I take it as a kindness now, nothing else to do. Our daughter observes all this with the wry poise of a teenager, still residing above the ugly struggle of adulthood but wise enough to see that her immunity is temporary. There's a bridge, he says, but you don't take it. You go toward the river and then turn away. She walks me down his stairs, lets me hold her hand as if for balance, and it is an act of balancing, a state of grace in which I am each plank feeling each nail at the time of its pounding. He calls out, Thanks for bringing her. I have no voice to answer--what's to say, anyway. I have my directions, little pieces of paper, streets to maneuver and friends to meet. I'll pretend this is enough, I'll go on and even feel better, but no less amazed to be here, on this other side, at this other time.