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Alcoholism
Denial
How old is the habit of denial? We keep secrets from ourselves that all along we know. The public was told that old Dresden was bombed to destroy strategic railway lines. There were no railway lines in that part of the city. But it would be years before that story came to the surface.
October 1994The Forgotten Children
When I pushed away the cot and lifted the trapdoor, his eyes glinted for a moment like an animal’s in the beam of Mother’s flashlight. Biscuit crumbs clung to his mouth, and around his shoulders was the old blanket he’d secreted away. I reached down to help him up, but he shrank from me, his eyes filled with hatred.
June 1994Homeless, But Not Crazy
Shortly after 1 a.m. recently, on-call in the psychiatric emergency room of a Boston hospital, I was asked to evaluate a homeless man, and in the process I confronted the limits of my professional empathy.
March 1993Selected Poems
Tonight the trees bend over like broken / old women picking up their husbands’ / empty whiskey bottles.
— from “Drunk Again, I Stumble Home On Euclid And Cut Across Thornden Park Baseball Field”
September 1992Last Year’s Poverty Was Not Enough
The day hadn’t begun well, but it was just another day in a long line of mean, anxious hours. Time mashed in on her like a couple of hands folded hard in prayer.
September 1992
