Sometimes I’ll suddenly remember the power
of her house, and of the approach to it,
down the narrow, extreme-curve-to-the-
right street, opening onto the
somehow delicate cul-de-sac, my
best friend’s
house—what?
Italianate? Ogive windows,
balconies, tile roof,
the land fallen off steep behind it to the
gradual slope to the Bay. And then
the flat stones up to her Doric
portico—between them flowering
weeds, no ice plant, no ivy, just tiny
blossoms, then there it was, like a villa,
a little Berkeley palace, a doctor’s
elegant home of safety where she was
dying, 9 years old, and I didn’t
let myself realize it.
If her mother had been there, maybe I could have
asked her if I could take a nap
with my friend when she fell
asleep—but her mother
had died the day before, my job
was to not let my friend know it—
so she could die as if she had
a mother. And what would I have given
to have been allowed to lie down
next to her dear skeletal body.
She still had her fine, chartreuse,
thick, almost sour-color hair,
as if the lead poison they’d breathed had
sharpened the chartreuse of it—
what would I have given to be
allowed to fall asleep with her
and dream, alive—what would I give
now? Nothing, I have nothing to give,
none of the luck which followed in my fortunate
life. But I pray for a sleep tonight in which,
9 and 9, we can hold each other in a
green dream.
—Sharon Olds
Sharon Olds teaches workshops at NYU and the Community of Writers in California. This poem will be in Balladz, due from Knopf in September 2022.
