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       LORRAINE

 

    In my front yard is a sign.  A man came the other day and put it there.  He just got out of his car, carried it up the steps and stabbed it into the ground right in front of my verbena.  And then he got into his car and drove away.  I watched him from upstairs.  He didn't even come to the door and say who he was or ask if it was all right to put it there.  He could have at least done that.  I'd rather have it on the other side of the walk, but I will not move it.  I have not looked at it.  I know what it says.

    Watching him, I got almost the same feeling that I have now.  I don't know what to call it.  I get it at night.  It comes from somewhere else and forces itself into me.  And I cry.  Not because I feel any sorrow or pain but because I remember crying the last time, and that seems so sad that I cry again.  It's like I lost something.  And then it leaves, and I lay here now and feel as I feel now and as I felt when I stopped my vacuum and watched that man put a sign in my front yard.  Violated.  And when Art rolls over and asks if there is something wrong, it is like when he came home  from work and said, I see the realtor was here.