Those overtime nights in the ice factory, eyeing gauges, greasing gears: that's one thing. And the hours of clarinet lessons. br All that rain that blathered on the patio, leaves br lifting and twisting, a demented semaphore. I hired myself br to crack that code, kept busy not conceiving you. I peopled br the past, got safely sad about that. I hammered together br a hut in the back of my brain to crawl inside and rest br from the labor of making it. My almost-daughter, my nearly-was son, br I was frugal, I made you wait till you grew br into the idea of waiting. See? These words hurt no one.