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Roach Holder, c. 1967

By Chase TwichellPosted Thursday, Sept. 18, 1997, at 3:30 AM ET

Look what I have in my hand:
a slender silver tweezer
blackened by thirty years.

I still feel the ground under my back,
the heat of the little red star.

But now I'm old enough to tell my friend
about those days of growing-pain
in a way that makes her laugh.

I wished for a love that would take me
from my parents' house, and I got it.

Later I wished that that love
had not done me so much damage.
Why then have I saved its artifact?

Diminutive stab of grief.

Strange keepsake.

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Chase Twichell's most recent book is The Ghost of Eden. She teaches in the creative writing program at Princeton University.
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