After the peace, after the broken
loves and failed career,
after the too many moves,
the too many hospitals, so sure
of their cures,
after the therapy, the falling naked
through the glass, after the therapy,
their long incantations into futility,
after the other man,
the thousand moments of rage
in his heart, after the ring,
the broken pacts, the lies,
all around us like roaches,
we survived on the edge,
trying somehow to live together.
My sister, brother climb
to the shuttered cottage
where I stay secluded.
I try to make them see
I can’t be a lunatic,
but here—somehow,
among the birds and trees,
the man’s trappings strewn
indecently over the furniture,
among the animals—we answer to no one,
somehow—here, is a future.
Today my brother pats my cheek
as if to relive the past
the times I beat the odds
when the war had not intruded
in the black days of the ’60s,
and my sister hugs me,
all but an illusive hope
of recovery left,
or no longer for me, that wish.