Overread at the Counter: Once

Once

Once,

we floundered, and then our love

was this dead thing, that we dissected

with a pair of pruning hooks on the

floor of the shed out back behind the house.

we did it quietly,

so the neighbors could not hear us over the garden wall,

burying the pieces in various spots in the yard:

under the flower bed,

in the potted plant,

and one tiny shard that I crushed into the soft earth

moistened by the slow constant drip from the

outside faucet that I never could get around to fixing.

then, the next day, we walked out the front

door and you went to the bus station and

I took the car into the city

and no one was ever the wiser.

2014-0417

MR