Timor Mortis

by Louise Glück

Why are you afraid?

A man in a top hat passed under the bedroom window. I couldn’t have been more than four at the time.

It was a dream: I saw him when I was high up, where I should have been safe from him.

Do you remember your childhood?

When the dream ended terror remained. I lay in my bed— my crib maybe.

I dreamed I was kidnapped. That means I knew what love was, how it places the soul in jeopardy. I knew. I substituted my body.

But you were hostage?

I was afraid of love, of being taken away. Everyone afraid of love is afraid of death.

I pretended indifference even in the presence of love, in the presence of hunger. And the more deeply I felt the less able I was to respond.

Do you remember your childhood?

I understood that the magnitude of these gifts was balanced by the scope of my rejection.

Do you remember your childhood?

I lay in the forest. Still, more still than any living creature. Watching the sun rise.

And I remember once my mother turning away from me in great anger. Or perhaps it was grief. Because for all she had given me, for all her love, I failed to show gratitude. And I made no sign of understanding.

For which I was never forgiven.

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1 year ago

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