The poet recalls an incident when "a far gone girl" comes waddling onto the scene. The month is June; the place, a mountain stream; and the time, when "there was no dark yet between us." Shoeless, the pregnant woman steps into the stream, "your skirt drawn up thighs / white as the growing mists." Years later, he treasures the image: "you waddle with that quick weight / of the beginning, deliberate as the earth's dim intentions / you keep bearing it like glory." [40 lines]
A young boy lies "coiled in my stale bed," suffering from an intractable ear infection, "overwhelming cures / with sourceless pus." His "coarse, cursing, and door slamming" grandfather comes into the room and lays his "scar-sizzled" hand on the boy's erythematous ear. The old man leans over and blows cigarette smoke into the child's ear. [44 lines]
The patient lies in the hospital after having a stroke. The "word" is the patient's best friend, but suddenly it's become what "you can't say." "You lie flat / in the white yards of the clinic" unable to find the word. Like a dog, it "drags its chain over the emptied / bowl, barks," but the patient is unable to call it or command it. The stroke victim must simply wait and listen.
