Going Gone Analysis

Over stone walls and barns,

miles from the black-eyed Susans,

over circus tents and moon rockets

you are going, going.

You who have inhabited me

in the deepest and most broken place,

are going, going.

An old woman calls up to you

from her deathbed deep in sores,

asking, "What do you keep of her?"

She is the crone in the fables.

She is the fool at the supper

and you, sir, are the traveler.

Although you are in a hurry

you stop to open a small basket

and under layers of petticoats

you show her the tiger-striped eyes

that you have lately plucked,

you show her specialty, the lips,

those two small bundles,

you show her the two hands

that grip her fiercely,

one being mine, one being yours.

Torn right off at the wrist bone

when you started in your

impossible going, gone.

Then you place the basket

in the old woman's hollow lap

and as a last act she fondles

these artifacts like a child's head

and murmurs, "Precious. Precious."

And you are glad you have given

them to this one for she too

is making a trip.

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