It wasn't being left again, she was used to sleeping alone, voices

muffled in rooms above, cinder block puttied brown. It wasn't knowing,

as she always knew, how love like paper sacks ripped with use:  two or

three tomatoes could nestle unseen, six would rupture the sides, tear

fibers. She read that a girl in Manhattan swaddled her baby in creamy tissue from department store boxes and lay the infant before St.

Patrick. Shrove Tuesday.  Overhead revelers loosened planks.  The woman in bed, weary of commotion, closed her ears.

past simple home