Terry Evans, The Lawrence’s House, Matfield Green, Kansas, 1995
Gelatin silver print, 37.5 x 37.5 cm
© Terry Evans, courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
The couch was glowing, pale, catching
moonlight—maybe—but more
like light itself—me half-blind,
even then, I mean I can’t see well
on normal days in normal life
but then I was staying at a college friend’s
childhood home, and it was late—
I’d gotten up for water, and was padding
back through the strange-to-me
house—my arms extended like antenna
or whiskers. I’d done this before,
at night, in my house or someone else’s,
going toward instead of retreating,
my head tilting, my eyes straining
wide, my right hand reaching—as if
by touching, by making contact
I would better know—maybe, early on,
I learned not to trust just one
of my senses—maybe it’s why
I still turn down music when I’m driving
and lost, or why, that night, I went toward
instead of away—I reached until
the milky light became another hand
meeting mine, both hands catching at once,
I heard a sob and the whiteness moved
into legs, a woman’s body—my friend’s
mother had me in her arms, or I had her,
sobbing into my long dark hair, she whispered
furious about my friend, her daughter,
and really it was all fear and sorrow,
with or without words, she passed it
to me, trembling, as if she knew
I was the type of child, or person,
who could take it—
or would.