I am alone in the house.
The kitchen is bright and clean and empty. The dishwasher has groaned its final bars and the silence is delicious.
I slice a Stayman apple on the scrubbed maple cheek of the butcher block.
The change in my status, the kitchen sink's blinding white regard, creates an atmosphere of vision. There have been too many biographies. All I know about myself, all I ever cared, is that I am not Tolstoy.
Yet I have been each person I read: blushing at the sophomorics of Plath, dyspneic as Jean Stafford and Dylan Thomas drank themselves to death, stepping alongside Wallace Stevens to the office ... understanding Genet's lust too well.
I have been Cinderella too long, and all that's here is laundry. The only stars are in the graniteware. There's a full day of work.
That seems to be the thing, not being afraid to work. My poet's hysterics—my campy phrases and comparisons, my perfect eye, my brilliant feelings—never got me anyplace. That was the only thing I knew how to do: react.
Now in this house we will see what can be done; at this late hour, in the face of melancholy itself. I have waited long enough. Now I shall fetch what I need myself—and perhaps a bit more.
