The Gate

BY MARIE HOWE

I had no idea that the gate I would step through
to finally enter this world

would be the space my brother's body made. He was
a little taller than me: a young man

but grown, himself by then,
done at twenty-eight, having folded every sheet,

rinsed every glass he would ever rinse under the cold
and running water.

This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.
And I'd say, What?

And he'd say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.
And I'd say, What?

And he'd say, This, sort of looking around.

Marie Howe reads her poem "The Gate." Part of the Poetry Everywhere project airing on public television. Produced by David Grubin Productions and WGBH Boston, in association with the Poetry Foundation. For more information, visit http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/poetryeverywhere/.

I am proud to have had Howe as a workshop teacher twice while in grad school. As much as she did teach me in those rooms about reading, and risk and voice, her work has taught me more. 

Here recent interview on NPR with Krista Tippet has a lot of the insight and voice I remember so clearly.