Don't wait until you read this to
think about it. I'll be gone by then,
somewhere between Helena and Friars Point,
headed for the Gulf. They'll feed me
along the way: they won't set their dogs on me
or marry me into their kitchens.
They'll show me stars to point by,
the moon shaped like a crust,
pockets in the night, crevices in hedges.
They want me to go; they've told me
with the warm rising dough of their bodies;
the crows on the highway have made a trail for me.
It's been this way for years; I know, I've heard it
in low sobs, fingers sliding across fretboards,
the hundred small messages the weather carries,
the raucous music of funerals. Widows tell me,
and women in doorways, in the same language:
Sell, sell, sell and choose, choose.
Otis (Tad) Richards