‘Hopeful’ read the sign at the Maine welcome center, decked out in bright colors and light bulbs. Same sign, slightly smaller, showed up at the inn where we stayed one night, where I stood by a window, looked down at the sidewalk and watched two Somali women talking, one all in white, one in hot pink, their swirling dresses reminders of how a glimpse of ‘a well-turned ankle’ was once the height of eroticism.  Some men like my long neck.  Some favored other aspects of a body undergoing unwelcome changes. I have given up hope that my hair will grow back, my teeth straighten out, my gums pink up to fill in the gaps.  I am simply hopeful I won’t lose more people I love, like the rangy, balding man in the shower, clearing his throat, washing the body that reaches out for me whenever I return to bed, covers me with bony limbs, bumpy ribs, no matter what I say or do.  Hope revives when I put my lips to the ridge line of his shoulder blades, feel him reach a hand behind to pull me in.