The way the room felt
with her in it—incomplete,

an epicenter for impulse. Even
number of flowers for a funeral,
odd for other occasions. She took one

look and rearranged the room. Bone
thin she was resolute
as the lilies upright in glass. Compact, hard-

pressed. The way her leg broke clean in two
places. The way she walked,
the way she walks now—half-

socked, tilted. The sumac
reddening on the hills. Heat-driven,
blade lightning, heart-quake—

what pulses through the body dulls
its sting in the ground. It
was no accident. The way bitterness enters—

I could take her in my arms, I could take
her by the arm lead her, I
could take her, lead her through

the doorway. We'd go hand
in hand, we'd pass
through, we'd pass. No

one could touch her. I could—

____

Any correlation to real events is purely coincidental. The poem itself is interested in accident.