things don't die or remain damaged 
but return: stumps grow back hands, 
a head reconnects to a neck, 
a whole corpse rises blushing and newly elastic. 
Later this vision is not True: 
the grandmother remains dead 
not hibernating in a wolf's belly. 
Or the blue parakeet does not return 
from the little grave in the fern garden 
though one may wake in the morning 
thinking mother's call is the bird. 
Or maybe the bird is with grandmother 
inside light. Or grandmother was the bird 
and is now the dog 
gnawing on the chair leg. 
Where do the gone things go 
when the child is old enough 
to walk herself to school, 
her playmates already 
pumping so high the swing hiccups?

Poet: Kimiko Hahn
Poem: In Childhood
Year: Published/Written in 2002

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