I'm Going Mad, I Told

Was It Possible That I Was, In The Modern Term, In Denial?

In A Language As Idiomatically Stressed As English, Opportunities For Misreadings Are Bound To Arise. By A Mere Backward Movement Of Stress, A Verb Can Become A Noun, An Act A Thing. To Refuse, To Insist On Saying No To What You Believe Is Wrong, Becomes At A Stroke Refuse, An Insurmountable Pile Of Garbage.

These Memories Sustained Him, But Not So Easily. Too Often They Reminded Him Of Where He Was When He Last Summoned Them. They Lay On The Far Side Of A Great Divide In Time, As Significant As B.c. And A.d. Before Prison, Before The War, Before The Sight Of A Corpse Became A Banality.

It Was Common Enough, To See So Much Death And Want A Child. Common, Therefore Human, And He Wanted It All The More. When The Wounded Were Screaming, You Dreamed Of Sharing A Little House Somewhere, Of An Ordinary Life, A Family Line, Connection.

This Is The Pain-pleasure Of Having Newly Adult Children; They're Innocent And Ruthless In Forgetting Their Sweet Old Dependence.