A Gift

That night she called his name, not mine

and could not call it back

I shamed myself, and thought of that blind

girl in Kodiak

who sat out on the stoop each night

to watch the daylight fade

and lift her child down to the gate cut

in the palisade

and what old caution love resigned

when through that misty stare

she passed the boy to not her bearskinned

husband but the bear