HE WALKED AWAY INTO HISTORY
    Now She Showers a Month After

     by Dick Bakken

Me

cast off
like blood from
that swamp
the heart when
he went.

Christ!

I raise
his first dead
black shirt
up from before
my toe—

Uhh!

a lizard
striped glassy
blinking the
skylight naked
as me.

Now

down out
my hair falling
in clockwork
genealogy a spot
dropped so red

There.