She stood at the front door with the
familiar holiday wreath. It had been five years. What to do? Knock?
Ring? She turned the knob. The hallway was full of scarves, coats,
boots; hanging on hooks, strewn across the floor. She stepped over
them. At the dining room, she slumped against the door frame. Her
mother was the first to notice. “Lily?” “Hey,” Lily said
through a curtain of tears. Home. She finally made it home.
The year she stopped eating and working and talking, she devolved, draping cloth over mirrors, not brushing her teeth. She went from Emily Dickinson to Sylvia Plath to Anne Sexton, reading their work over and over, copying their words. A day came. She reached for a pencil... cracked egg, hot griddle. Her first poem filled two pages. She now eats oatmeal and wanton soup from the Chinese restaurant.