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Twice-Born

Her grief was twice-born.
Her daughter's husband
The father of her grandchildren
Had been killed in Afghanistan.

She looked at something far.
Oh, god, she said.
She does not earn enough
For a family of three.
Then the grief came again.
She will have to get back
Into the dating scene.  It's awful.

Age, Tom Stoppard wrote,
Is a high price to pay for maturity.
Maturity is twice-born, too, of pain:
The pain of achieving it,
And the pain of having to deny it.

Her daughter will play games again,
Covering her desperation in smiles. 
She will measure her empty space,
Laughing at nothing to hide something,
Trying not to remember integrity.

She will die twice, too,
Staring--first--without hope
At her closet door.

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