The Redacted Narrative

On the morning of April 6,
I was instructed to give a complete account
of what happened at _________________________,
between the hours of two and four.

I entered the house at 2:17
and found the door standing open,
a chair overturned near the table,
and one coat hanging where
________________________________________.

The officer asked whose coat it was.

I answered ________________________________.

That portion of my statement
has been removed.

At 2:31, the telephone rang.
I answered it and heard
________________________________________,
followed by a voice I knew.

The officer asked what the voice said.

I answered ________________________________.

That portion has been removed as well.

At 2:46, I went upstairs
and found the bedroom untouched
except for a letter on the bed,
addressed to ______________________________.

The officer asked what was written inside.

I said I could not repeat it.

He asked again.

I gave him the first sentence,
then stopped at ____________________________.

The remaining statement was crossed out.

By 3:10, the house had filled
with men who wrote everything down,
looked over the room,
opened drawers,
examined the door,
and recorded every object
except __________________________________.

When they finished,
the officer placed the letter in an envelope
and asked me to sign beneath my statement.

I asked whether the missing words
would remain in the record.

He said ________________________________.

That answer has been removed.

Thirty years have passed
since I signed that page.

I have kept a copy of the statement
in a manila folder among the tax receipts,
though the important parts
have been blacked out so completely
that even I can no longer tell
whether I wrote the name
or whether I only thought it.

There is one sentence left.

The ink has faded around it,
yet these words remain:

I should have told ____________________
before ____________________________.

Everything after that
has been covered.

Everything before it
has been preserved.