Vox Populi
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Laura McCullough: Hero With Only One Face
He tells me in his diminishing days, death not yet active, but clearly begun, about his siblings, family shufflings, foster homes, the orphanage. Who said they would but then could not, who promised this & forgot that, who turned away for reasons good or not, his siblings lost to him & lost again. Lies held belying ties, whose blood, who’s not, not mattering at all. My tears as he tells his stories—again—invisible to him who swears his childhood was great, that he was a hero to all, made promises & kept them when others failed, how now with his walker, he still can raise a fist, claim he is a hero not going gladly & must prove in some way even now that he is the hero in a story that held such pain the way to not be engulfed by it was to create a new one to layer over the reality, a great skill, what helped him survive, but now, as an elder has left him largely unwise to his own greatness, stuck in an adolescent dream of conquering & tests & trials to be overcome, the hero welcomed gladly & with fanfare—all hail the returning son!-- turning even more deeply into this & away from the journey into mystery, one that can’t be overcome.
Copyright 2023 Laura McCullough
Laura McCullough’s books include Women and Other Hostages (Black Lawrence 2021). A three time NJ State Arts Council Fellow, she is a full professor at Brookdale Community College.
Vox Populi 
Oh, the ache to matter to the people in our lives. And the sorrow that we might not.
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Thanks Jane. I love Laura’s poem for the reasons you say.
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“he is the hero in a story that held such pain the way
to not be engulfed by it was to create a new one to layer
over the reality, a great skill, what helped him survive,” so moving…
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Lives seem so short when you look at them in hindsight. And that ever-present need of the man to prove himself good enough breaks my heart.
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Well-said, Kim.
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