<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Self-Portrait<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class="orig_14373821" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(20, 24, 35); font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial;">After Adam Zagajewski<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">I am child to no one, mother to a few,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">wife for the long haul.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">On fall days I am happy<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">with my dying brethren, the leaves,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">but in spring my head aches<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">from the flowery scents.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">My husband fills a room with Mozart<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">which I turn off, embracing<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">the silence as if it were an empty page<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">waiting for me alone to fill it.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">He digs in the black earth<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">with his bare hands. I scrub it<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">from the creases of his skin, longing<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">for the kind of perfection<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">that happens in books.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">My house is my only heaven.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">A red dog sleeps at my feet, dreaming<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">of the manic wings of flushed birds.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">As the road shortens ahead of me<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">I look over my shoulder<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">to where it curves back<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">to childhood, its white line<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">bisecting the real and the imagined<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">the way the ridgepole of the spine<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">divides the two parts of the body, leaving<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">the soft belly in the center<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">vulnerable to anything.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">As for my country, it blunders along<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">as well intentioned as Eve choosing<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">cider and windfalls, oblivious<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">to the famine soon to come.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">I stir pots, bury my face in books, or hold<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">a telephone to my ear as if its cord<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">were the umbilicus of the world<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">whose voices still whisper to me<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">even after they have left their bodies.</div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Linda Pastan</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(<span style="color: rgb(54, 54, 54); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">May 27, 1932-January 30, 2023)</span></div></div></body></html>