mark jackley

 

 

that year, i left my wife for someone who lived on a farm

An earthquake at the World Series --
that too had never happened.
Spiders webbed the front door
under a harvest moon,
cold-blooded as Stonewall Jackson
on Cedar Mountain beyond.
My dog loved to nose in
mole holes by the barn.
Years later, I bought my lover's tombstone.
Cancer, forty-one.
She looked just like her mother
who served time for murder.
Twice we broke her bed.
Cornstalks in October
were tawny and the darker
it got, the brighter they burned.

 

 

back to issue 1

take me home