aayoungrounded up 8 men
still bitter
about being forced away from his
english degree at the college of
William and Mary
and hung them from a gallows
above fishin’ creek
for being northern sympathizers
kicking a tree the size of god
from beneath their feet
as their wives and children watched
in horror lashed to a tree
and let me say
to the union
my bones are still sorry
i find myself longing
to live inside
a sepia toned lithograph
from the civil war
.
you’d be shipped to the mysterious
far off north
while i embalmed bodies
along side Thomas Holmes
my apron covered with
the sins of man
on blood soaked battlefields of the south
.
after a thousand letters written
and lessons learned
you’d come back home to me
with half yourself blown off
so i would decide
as a good woman does
to love you
all the more
.
you were standing there
enjoying a cigarette
the orchestral way you do
as i came around the corner
i stood still to watch
the uprising
it’s a part of your machine
and i accept that
the consensus view is
if you quit now
you’d die of not smoking
never having expected
to see you again
it was all the more overwhelming
to find you looking so beautiful
succumbing to the desire
of examining every inch of your skin
to verify
it is
as i left it
i thought i loved you
but i realize now i didn’t
i wanted you to fuck me
every moment of the rest of our lives
the final glorious act
in the perpetual stage show
you are
we were
together
but don’t blame singing sirens
or my absent daddy
they can’t help being dead myths
on the contrary
it was how deep our tongues
were buried
in conversation
the way we instinctively knew
how to kiss
mouth to mind
bend me over and teach me
yes, all of that
but i didn’t love you
or our silver-trimmed matching sets
of unrealistic expectations
in fact i came to hate you
i’ve forgiven you
i’ve forgiven me
and the death
i chose to take up with
thereafter
but i’ll never forgive your mother
i now find myself
clear of mind
and intentions
if these things happen
they happen
immediately
you said
that being the case
and the blue of your eyes
withstanding
i promise to be a better me
and not to love you
the way wars make windows
my steamer trunk of historic things
holds familial treasures
the jersey my father played high school basketball in
and the schedule upon which he penned
eubank high school’s 57-58 winning tally
my mother’s wedding china
news clippings of an uncle perished at sea
whose suitcase crossed the river of the dead
to come back home and tell the story
microfilm of my grandfather’s death certificate
ruling it a homicide by gunshot wound
engagement rings that took and a few that didn’t
but what i truly desire
to hold in my hands
then place into a glowing glass case
is the first copy of Gone With the Wind
my grandmother fell in love with Rhett Butler to