Adrienne Rich — There is No One Story and One Story Only

The engineer’s story of hauling coal to Davenport for the cement factory, sitting on the bluffs between runs looking for whales, hauling concrete back to Gilroy, he and his wife renewing vows in the glass chapel in Arkansas after 25 years The flight attendant’s story murmured to the flight steward in the dark galley of her fifth-month loss of nerve about carrying the baby she’d seen on the screen The story of the forensic medical team’s small plane landing on an Alaska icefield of the body in the bag they had to drag over the ice like the whole life of that body The story of the man driving 600 miles to be with a friend in another country seeming easy when leaving but afterward writing in a letter difficult truths Of the friend watching him leave remembering the story of her body with his once and the stories of their children made with other people and how his mind went on pressing hers like a body There is the story of the mind’s temperature neither cold nor celibate Ardent The story of not one thing only.