Who Am I?

A woman,a lover of this precious, crumbling world,my own fleshly world crumbling,precious, too. An infant born to a mother who adored infants,who needed an infantforever;a too-soon awkward child;an adolescent struggling toward the salvation of competence;a wife, certain she knew how she should be,how he should be,how everyone should be;a mother, a perfect mother, a failed mother;a lesbian starving for food she had never tasted;a grandmother,a grandmother,a grandmother.All tucked neatly, like nesting dolls,inside an old woman.An old woman standing close by the end of her eighth decade. Who am I?A lone woman,a fleck of dust in an expanding universe,a fleck of consciousnessamazed. A gatherer of words.Words laid out, one by one by one,seeking . . .not the eternity of the page.Paper crumbles, too,like worlds.Like my fleshly crumbling world.I gather a bouquet words,my past into words,hold it in this moment,only this momentof loss,joy,confusion,wonder. I gather words to saythis,this,only this. I am here.I am. [A piece from my memoir in progress, currently titled  All the Love in this Trembling World:  A Memoir in Verse]