Body Of Work
I’d like to be judged
on my whole body of work.
Not the me you remember
from high school, when no one
was anyone yet. Not
as I was in my twenties,
scared into the wrong arms
by encroaching solitude
& a conditional childhood.
Yes you can take my thirties
in account, as I tried to be
who I’d been raised to be, failed
— or worse, succeeded —
struck out across a burning bridge
to save myself and my sons.
Tally up my forties, too;
full of shouts & quaking &
not yet complete.
Have you arrived at me
even now?
/ / /
Jason Crane
7 February 2020
State College PA
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