This time it is no dream. After twenty-three years away

I wake in a Spokane convent in my Black Watch

plaid pajamas — daybreak, the last

day of September 1996. I used to spring from bed

at the bell's first clang. Now there's

something wrong with the bedsprings

I cannot fix. 
                                Shyly, light enters, spills over

the floor of the room. Holy or not, I

feel more at home than in thirty-eight

years I lived here. Then let me admit the light,

endorse the mirror over my private

sink. Time to reopen the old account

stored in the memory bank. 
                                                                What was I running from

or into? The uneasy light of the senior

prom? Mother's dream of a child bride, supported by

pennies from heaven? Or was it the writing

life laid as a sacrifice to a jealous god

on the tomb of the woman

I'd hoped to become?
                                                      Whatever it was, it will soon

be over. I write this now to reclaim it. 
From Blue Dusk: New and Collected Poems, 1951-2001, originally published in Blue Dusk: New and Collected Poems, 1951-2001. Reprinted by gracious permission from Copper Canyon Press.

We're publishing poetry from Madeline DeFrees each Tuesday in December, to celebrate her life. Read more about this. 

Previously: Matinal, Phobias Incorporated, Grandmother Grant, In the locker room.