There is a place

or way of being, perhaps,

where we are separated from our stories.

There is, possibly, a way to see an event

through a thinner cornea of personalization.

Just as it is without the layer we stack upon it.

Let's just say, this, for example, is not the doorknob

my mother used to hang her purse on.

And that purse was not stuffed with Ricola cough drops,

crocheted glasses holders, Kent cigarettes,

and a wallet with the change section in the middle.

And, I did not, as a child and then a teen,

sneak into my mother's change to steal quarters

often dollars at a time, for Sixteen magazines

or cinnamon rolls in the junior high cafeteria.

And, without a doubt, I did not look at those magazines

wondering when my Dorothy Hamill haircut

would get the attention of Tom or Paul or, in my wildest dreams,

Mark Schoeppner, the captain of everything good and right.

No, this is just a doorknob in the bungalow at 8 Lebanon Hills,

and when I see it, I am not sad for a mother whose hand I held

as her skin, quickly and permanently, went from rosy to still.

And I do not remember the Christmases when Carrie were there,

somehow drawing together the family that hadn't quite

laughed enough together. And I do not think about

eggs benedict on the good china, nor do I

reach back to smell herb toast or see a puppy

licking ice cream from a bowl.

All I see is a doorknob. An old, glass doorknob

to a closet, in a house, on a street, 132.2 miles away.