Down Home Deadly
Holding the slat down with one finger
I watch him stand outside my door
Sunday proper, three piece with suspenders
gold watch rides the S curve of his paunch
Eighty one, righteous and an early riser
while I wish for coffee and a cigarette.
Since the funeral, a pattern
brief visits conducted on my porch
obituaries of my husband
neatly cut from local news
mounted and sealed in plastic
for me "to keep".
Then there are the cats
He found a dead cat on his lawn
I have several, "could it be yours?"
We stand side by side to stare
at mangled fur and bone,
a black garbage bag and shovel
morbid props, as he points
to where he drove his pickup
buried the last one in my field
my home, already landscaped by death
three cats down, my son says
he runs them over, then calls me.
The mailbox gets knocked down
one more victim in the carnage
Next morning, shorter, bent,
but resurrected, it haunts my drive
At the post office he shares
that he stays up late, watches Leno
sees I'm safely home each night
I dream of fast growing cedars
to block his view.
To him, we are spare parts
to be gathered, sorted, put to use
the way of things here
where hard times and small farms
mean matches made elsewhere than heaven.
Harmless, foolish old man I am told
but once and not too long ago
he made an entire church disappear
almost overnight
wide plank fatlighter pine
lumber prized and sought
If he could make God disappear
from the middle of his own woods
What chance have I?
Next Bouet Poem
