ustxtxb_obs_2002_11_22_50_00021-00000_000.pdf

POETRY Unspoken Enrico kept his eyes on me Throughout the third grade, As if I might disappear Without his frill attention. His mother had not come back From the hospital that summer, Her last words glittering With promises of a sister. I kept close to his desk, Pulled up a chair near him When reading stories and Pretended this was routine. I missed him when he was sick, Out with a bad cold. Did he catch it from me? I was afraid to miss a day. How do you change the eyes Of a child who doesn’t understand, Who carries fear in his backpack, Who sleeps in cold sheets? Enrico was gone one day. We could have hugged good-bye, We could have promised to write, If someone had known about us. Lorraine Loiselle but I think it ends with a question mark. Enough, says the body. Enough, says the brain. Let’s see if you can find the rest of the world Enough The hay is in the barn. The dew is on the baler. The beer is in the fridge. The bills are on the table. How lonely and particular and how strikingly common. Eros and Thanatos, the house that’s been built for each of us, along with the infinite details of these hours which arrive as someone turns the lock or flicks the light from the porch. I can’t remember what comes next, from the rest of the farm, the pasture of your fabulous dream. Thom Ward Lorraine Loiselle lives in Pittsburgh and has published poems in dozens of journals, including Plainsongs and Main Street Rag. A retired teacher and mother of two, she has also published children’s stories, fiction, memoirs, and newspaper feature articles. Thom Ward is editor at BOA Editions, Ltd., a not-for-profit publishing house of American poetry and poetry in translation in Rochester, NewYork. His third poetry collection, Various Orbits, will be published by Carnegie Mellon University Press in 2003. “Enough” is the concluding poem in that book. Naomi Shihab Nye 11/22/02 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21