Elegy for an Ex-Husband / The Dead by Amy L. Fair

Elegy for an Ex-Husband

He burned like an oven,
and she was taken in
like a mouthful of gasoline
and someone else's spit,
like liquid fire;
he had no need for a wick.

Headlong,
he lit a path into his own darkness,
and she opened his waistcoat
like a lantern,
no, like a tomb,
and a garden like fine embroidery
fell out of his breast pocket
where his heart should be.

He once doubled that heart
like a handkerchief,
and passed it to her,
but it managed to slip
through her fingers.

No one said to her,
you will not see him again,
and no one brought back word
about what kind of death
he would have, and when.
She realized that now,
he can't apologize,
and he can't change his mind.


**********

The Dead

Dig a new grave,
and bury my crutch.

His arms were folded
over his eyes and you
were there with your heart
out, there where every word spoken
dropped into the river,
undressed, sinking like the dying,
stinking like the dead.

The dead wallow
invisible in your bright blood,
lost in the chaos
of the churning waters below.

They gather in the space
between the swells,
their needs like tendrils
and you cannot shake them off.
They do not need to say
I'll never leave you.

Amy L. Fair, a West Virginia native, makes her home in rural Oregon, where she teaches writing and literature at a small community college, lives in a little gray house filled with cats, and plans to grow old without any grace whatsoever.