And halfway up, she froze, balanced on a ledge.
They nearly killed themselves to get her down.
At one point David had to wedge himself
Into a crevice, tie down to a rock,
And lower her by rope to another ledge.
When it was over, they were furious.
They drove her back, and he
Surprised me, coming here instead of home.
His clothes were torn, his hands and face cut up.
I went upstairs for bandages, but he
Wanted to shower first. When he called me in,
I watched him standing in the steamy bathroom—
His naked body shining from the water—
Carefully drying himself with a towel.
Then suddenly he threw it down and showed me
Where the ropes had cut into his skin.
It looked as if he had been branded,
Wounds deep enough to hide your fingers in.
I felt like holding him but couldn’t bear it.
I helped him into bed and spent the night
Sitting in this room, too upset to sleep.
And on the morning after he drove home.
He graduated just a few months later,
And then went off to Europe where he wrote me
Mainly about beer halls and mountain trips.
I wrote that they would be the death of him.
That spring his mother phoned me when he fell.
I wonder if you know how strange it feels
When someone so much younger than you dies?
And, if I tell you something, will you not
Repeat it? It is something I don’t understand.
The night he died I had a dream. I dreamt
That suddenly the room was filled with light,
Not blinding but the soft whiteness that you see
When heavy snow is falling in the morning,
And I awoke to see him standing here,
Waiting in the doorway, his arms outstretched.
“I’ve come back to you,” he said. “Look at me.
Let me show you what I’ve done for you.”
And only then I saw his skin was bruised,
Torn in places, crossed with deep red welts,
But this time everywhere — as if his veins
Had pushed up to the surface and spilled out.
And there was nothing in his body now,
Nothing but the voice that spoke to me,
And this cold white light pouring through the room.
I stared at him. His skin was bright and pale.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked.
“Please, go away.”
“But I’ve come back to you.
I’m cold. Just hold me. I’m so very cold.”
What else could I have done but hold him there?
I took him in my arms — he was so light—
And held him in the doorway listening.
Nothing else was said or lost it seemed.
We waited there while it grew dark again,
And he grew lighter, slipping silently away
Like snow between my fingers, and was gone.
That’s all there is to say. I can’t explain it,
And now I’m sorry to have bored you so.
It’s getting late. You know the way upstairs.
But no, of course not. Let me show you to your room.
COUNTING THE CHILDREN
I.
“This must have been her bedroom, Mr. Choi.
It’s hard to tell. The only other time
I came back here was when I found her body.”
Neither of us belonged there. She lived next door.
I was the accountant sent out by the State
To take an inventory of the house.
When someone wealthy dies without a will,
The court sends me to audit the estate.
They know that strangers trust a man who listens.
The neighbor led me down an unlit hall.
We came up to a double door and stopped.
She whispered as if someone else were near.
“She used to wander around town at night
And rifle through the trash. We all knew that.
But what we didn’t know about was them.”
She stepped inside and fumbled for a switch.
It didn’t work, but light leaked through the curtains.
“Come in,” she said. “I want to show you hell.”
I walked into a room of wooden shelves
Stretching from floor to ceiling, wall to wall,
With smaller shelves arranged along the center.
A crowd of faces looked up silently.
Shoulder to shoulder, standing all in rows,
Hundreds of dolls were lining every wall.
Not a collection anyone would want—
Just ordinary dolls salvaged from the trash
With dozens of each kind all set together.
Some battered, others missing arms and legs,
Shelf after shelf of the same dusty stare
As if despair could be assuaged by order.
They looked like sisters huddling in the dark,
Forgotten brides abandoned at the altar,
Their veils turned yellow, dresses stiff and soiled.
Rows of discarded little girls and babies—
Some naked, others dressed for play — they wore
Whatever lives their owners left them in.
Where were the children who promised them love?
The small, caressing hands, the lips which whispered
Secrets in the dark? Once they were woken,
Each by name. Now they have become each other—
Anonymous except for injury,
The beautiful and headless side by side.
Was this where all lost childhoods go? These dim
Abandoned rooms, these crude arrangements staged
For settled dust and shadow, left to prove
That all affection is outgrown, or show
The uniformity of our desire?
How dismal someone else’s joy can be.
I stood between the speechless shelves and knew
Dust has a million lives, the heart has one.
I turned away and started my report.
II.
That night I dreamt of working on a ledger,
A book so large it stretched across my desk,
Thousands of numbers running down each page.
I knew I had to settle the account,
Yet as I tried to calculate the total,
The numbers started slipping down the page,
Suddenly breaking up like Scrabble letters
Brushed into a box to end a game,
Each strained-for word uncoupled back to nil.
But as I tried to add them back together
And hold each number on the thin green line
Where it belonged, I realized that now
Nothing I did would ever fit together.
In my hands even 2 + 2 + 2
No longer equaled anything at all.
And then I saw my father there beside me.
He asked me why I couldn’t find the sum.
He held my daughter crying in his arms.
My family stood behind him in a row,
Uncles and aunts, cousins I’d never seen,
My grandparents from China and their parents,
All of my family, living and dead,
A line that stretched as far as I could see.
Even the strangers called to me by name.
And now I saw I wasn’t at my desk
But working on the coffin of my daughter,
And she would die unless I found the sum.
But I had lost too many of the numbers.
They tumbled to the floor and blazed on fire.
I saw the dolls then — screaming in the flames.
III.
When I awoke, I sat up straight in bed.
The sweaty sheet was twisted in my hands.
My heart was pounding. Had I really screamed?
But no, my wife was still asleep beside me.
I got up quietly and found my robe,
Knowing I couldn’t fall asleep again.
Then groping down the unlit hall, I saw