Poem

Snapped Branch

for Craig Paterson

won’t you like my life?

I have lived enough of it

with some to spare

enough to share with you 

that what I have learned

has taught me

I am tempted to leave it at that!

but there is more

and when I am gone

still more 

something to think about

to make something of

I am looking for an editor

a narrative

to begin in the middle

an October afternoon

walking with her and her dog

along a creek

I am listening to a story

of a woman

whose son she treated

kneeling over him

the woman over her 

crying, wailing

she reaches into the wound

and she pauses

still walking 

one, two, three steps

something clicks

a snapped branch

she tells me she has read things

only I would understand