Poem for Saturday, November 15, 2014

Straggler

The day after she buried him, a layer of ice
had formed, covering his plot and creeping
up the granite to preserve the epitaph:

                        No Blood on His Hands.

Fifty years earlier, they were sweating on their
South Pacific honeymoon. She remembered
lying on the shore. He fed her June plums
picked from the vine.

But now, the cruelty of winter was apparent:
too cold for fruit, flowers, or birds except
a single flock-shunned goose, flailing
through a merciless gray sky

                       in fear and disbelief.