What It Took

written for Amy, Teresa, Shell and Margaret on Feb 21, 1999, my forty-second

birthday and one year after our women's sexual healing group

What it took
was a flag at half-mast
What it took
was a houseful of clues
What it took
was the courage to listen
What it took
was a bottomless blues

The door to my attic
has come unlatched
Its trunks are filled
with outgrown clothes
The glass figurine
smashes to the floor
Its fragments glisten
like precious jewels

All that I am
I have been
And what I've seen
made movies
I watch the parting shots
and give credit
where credit is due:
Some to me, some to you

I celebrate my life again
remember friends and innocents
and wash the demons
from my eyes
and raise the flag
to its full height
and fly, my dear ones
overhead