and specifically her relationships with these women, was kept under wraps. At one point, Bishop instructed Methfessel to destroy any evidence of their relationship, saying: "I am old-fashioned and believe in discretion and privacy". She would refer to Methfessel as her secretary or friend, and Methfessel was often mistaken for Bishop's caregiver. Now in her sixties, Bishop's asthma had worsened and was paired with dysentery which weakened her immune system; teeth problems requiring many procedures and rheumatism made it painful and more difficult for her to walk or type. She wanted to keep up with her companion who was more than thirty years younger and began abusing Nembutal to sleep and Dexamyl to suppress her appetite and stabilize her mood. Methfessel not only oversaw her medications but helped keep Bishop organized and active in her daily activities and her career. Bishop and Methfessel traveled the globe together, and their relationship thrived for five years until Bishop's behaviors and alcoholism drove a wedge between them. In the spring of 1975, Methfessel had met someone else and was engaged to be married. However, the two did not cease corresponding. Methfessel was written into Bishop's will to inherit almost all of her wealth and property and was instructed to carry out an assisted suicide should Bishop's health deteriorate to a certain point. In October 1975, Bishop began writing "One Art." Her first draft, "How to Lose Things," "The Gift of Losing Things," and "The Art of Losing Things" was a prose-heavy confessional depicting what she had lost and how it could be a lesson. The final draft "One Art" is a much more distanced and structured chronicle of the losses in her life which have taught her a lesson, and a very present loss she is facing and learning from. In the following year, the villanelle was published April 26, 1976, issue of The New Yorker as was her book Geography III, which was years in the making and satisfied the elegy she always intended to write. In the years to come, Bishop would find Methfessel again and spend her remaining years in her company until a brain aneurysm in 1979 that resulted in her death. Writing Bishop wrote seventeen drafts of the poem, with titles including "How to Lose Things," "The Gift of Losing Things," and "The Art of Losing Things". By the fifteenth draft, Bishop had chosen "One Art" as her