Poetry

Between Wytheville, Virginia
and the North Carolina line,
he meets a wagon headed
where he’s been, seated beside
her parents a dark-eyed girl

As such things go, my reign of terror
felt impressive.

What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things

Children,
when I am ash
read by the light of the fire
that consumes me

I believe you did not have a happy life.
I believe you were cheated.
I believe your best friends were loneliness and misery,
I believe your busiest enemies were anger and depression.

I didn’t make present
those days he didn’t complain
but I knew he was sick, felt
sick, and a look would pass between us,
a doomed look that nonetheless

When it was too much, he went out
of the body’s unspeakable suffering. Rose. Stepped away.