— mother at her brother's grave · november
1968 · the lower cemetery · album v
thirty years after he left, and twenty-two after the last letter, the news came by way of a stranger who had known him in the port town and had been given an address by another stranger. they had not heard he was ill. they had not heard he had stopped working. they had not heard, until then, that the work was done.
she put a stone in the family plot with his name and his dates and nothing else. she went there twice a year for the rest of her life. she always took the same flowers, which were small and not particularly impressive, and laid them where his head would have been, if any of him had been there.
field-note taken by her son, who had driven her. she did not know the photograph was being taken. she would not have minded. she was used to being looked at by then, and tired of it.