Thinking of Robert Lowell, End of Winter

 

You know how it is—the doctor leans in

puts his hand on your knee

whispering so your loved ones can’t hear—

it’s time for you to improve

as if you’re a conscious river

as if under the ice you can change course.

 

Illness was topographical:

A specific psychiatrist

seeing the lanyard

I wore as a necklace asked

was it a fetish—unable to see

the accoutrement of latch key children—

 

for we must have made the world

and all its marl.

This was the house

of the mad, 1970, poor

broken clay lacking will

they quietly brought the earth

and spooned it into

each and every

one of us.