Mildred
Carl dies.
Then the insurance man with one glass eye
comes to court Mildred, who smiles
through the haze of her grief, a thousand miles away.
I’m twelve, thirteen, and these are the years of the house
call, Dr. Miklozek drifting down the hallway
with a syringe of morphine for Mildred.
I hated you, she says. I’m nineteen,
twenty. For years I actually hated you.
* *
Six men carry my father’s coffin across a barren
hill (no, there were crosses, a
sea of white crosses), and now gunshots – military gunshots – clear
the birds from their winter nests.
That night I dream of riders in the rain, a
plague of ravens, a man bending down
to whisper something to Mildred, who isn’t listening.
They hand her a flag.
* *
I’m marching against the war in Southeast Asia
when a few jocks from a nearby high-school
break the ranks of the protestors
with baseball bats.
A girl I’ve known since I was a child
doubles over on the sidewalk, taking it.
* *
On the screen
a monk goes up in flames, saffron flames.
Mildred is silent, but her hand
inches across the sofa, briefly clutches mine.
Tim Applegate lives in western Oregon. His poems have appeared in The Florida Review, Lake Effect, South Dakota Review, Open Spaces, and Talking River Review among others. His first collection, At The End Of Day, was published by Traprock Books in 2007.