The Best American Poetry 2012
“The chair from Goodwill smelled of mildew.
I sat with Sister Ann, a Franciscan.
In her small office, at the Cenacle Retreat House, right off Dixie Highway in Lantana, Florida, I began my story— it was an interview, much of life is an interview.
She said I did not need to pay her, but donations, yes, donations were appreciated: they could be left anonymously in a plain white envelope that she could take back to the cloister.
She was dressed in a turtleneck and a denim jumper.
She could have been... mistaken in a grocery store for an aging housewife.
My meetings with her went on for a few years.
I had come to speak about Durell.
I did not know how to end sentences about Durell.
He had taught me—what? To live? Not to wince in the mirror?
What? There were so many ways to end my sentence.
He was an unlikely candidate for so many things.
Outside, it was always some subtle variation of summer.
I paused, then spoke urgently, not wanting to forget some fact, but much I knew I would forget or remember in a way my own, which would not exactly be correct, no, not exactly.MoreLess
I sat with Sister Ann, a Franciscan.
In her small office, at the Cenacle Retreat House, right off Dixie Highway in Lantana, Florida, I began my story— it was an interview, much of life is an interview.
She said I did not need to pay her, but donations, yes, donations were appreciated: they could be left anonymously in a plain white envelope that she could take back to the cloister.
She was dressed in a turtleneck and a denim jumper.
She could have been... mistaken in a grocery store for an aging housewife.
My meetings with her went on for a few years.
I had come to speak about Durell.
I did not know how to end sentences about Durell.
He had taught me—what? To live? Not to wince in the mirror?
What? There were so many ways to end my sentence.
He was an unlikely candidate for so many things.
Outside, it was always some subtle variation of summer.
I paused, then spoke urgently, not wanting to forget some fact, but much I knew I would forget or remember in a way my own, which would not exactly be correct, no, not exactly.MoreLess
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