Breast Cancer Answers Art Gallery

NEVERTHELESS

The bookbag on my back, I'm out the door.
Winter turns to spring
The way it does, and I buy dresses.
A year later, it gets to where
When they say How are you feeling,
With that anxious look on their faces,
And I start to tell them the latest
About my love life or my kids' love lives,
Or my vacation or my writer's block--
It actually takes me a while
To realize what they have in mind--
I'm fine, I say, I'm great, I'm clean.
The bookbag on my back, I have to run.

From The Crack in Everything (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996)

© 1996, Alicia Ostriker


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