there is a loneliness that can be rocked. arms crossed, knees drawn up; holding, holding on,this motion, unlike a ship's, smooths and contains the rocker. it's an inside kind — wrapped tightlike skin.

then there is a loneliness that roams. no rocking can hold it down. it is alive, on its own. a dryand spreading thing that makes the sound of one's own feet going seem to come from a far-offplace. everybody knew what she was called, but nobody anywhere knew her name.

disremembered and unaccounted for, she cannot be lost because no one is looking for her, andeven if they were, how can they call her if they don't know her name? although she has claim, sheis not claimed. in the place where long grass opens, the girl who waited to be loved and cry shameerupts into her separate parts, to make it easy for the chewing laughter to swallow her all away.

it was not a story to pass on.

they forgot her like a bad dream. after they made up their tales,shaped and decorated them, those that saw her that day on the porch quickly and deliberatelyforgot her. it took longer for those who had spoken to her, lived with her, fallen in love with her, toforget, until they realized they couldn't remember or repeat a single thing she said, and began tobelieve that, other than what they themselves were thinking, she hadn't said anything at all. so, inthe end, they forgot her too. remembering seemed unwise. they never knew where or why shecrouched, or whose was the underwater face she needed like that. where the memory of the smileunder her chin might have been and was not, a latch latched and lichen attached its apple-greenbloom to the metal. what made her think her fingernails could open locks the rain rained on?

it was not a story to pass on.

so they forgot her. like an unpleasant dream during a troubling sleep. occasionally, however, therustle of a skirt hushes when they wake, and the knuckles brushing a cheek in sleep seem to belongto the sleeper. sometimes the photograph of a close friend or relative — looked at too long —shifts, and something more familiar than the dear face itself moves there. they can touch it if theylike, but don't, because they know things will never be the same if they do.

this is not a story to pass on.

down by the stream in back of 124 her footprints come and go, come and go. they are so familiar.

should a child, an adult place his feet in them, they will fit. take them out and they disappear again as though nobody ever walked there.

by and by all trace is gone, and what is forgotten is not only the footprints but the water too andwhat it is down there. the rest is weather. not the breath of the disremembered and unaccountedfor, but wind in the eaves, or spring ice thawing too quickly. just weather.

certainly no clamor for a kiss.

beloved.