Shit. Time to go.
I turn back to Alex, meeting her eyes one last time, and I bring my fingers to her face with a feather touch.
Then I leave her, with two last words.
I promise.
Nickel Mines
(Crank and Julia Wilson, 2006)
A one room schoolhouse
Fields of grain
Soft sounds of rural life
Creaking of leather straps and wagon wheels
Manure and hickory smoke
The wind blows metallic terror
as a truck backs up into a nightmare
A man
torn by
something?
“I’m trying to find something he says”
to disarm
then he brings out the guns
The clatter of rounds in the chamber
A threat revealed
Some are let go
adults with babies, and all the boys
hot with fear and sweat
but the girls are kept in quivering terror
zip ties cut into the flesh
trembling faith stretched thin by evil
Some real or imagined offense
far in the man’s past
brings murder to Nickel Mines
take me first, says one girl, that the others may live
a second girl asks for the same
One shot, two, three, then four. Five and six. Seven.
Eight. Nine.
Ten.
Naomi and Lena. Mary Liz and Anna Mae. Marion
all dead
I would ask
did the killer believe in Jesus and
if so, was he whisked straight to heaven?
How do you get justice when someone kills themselves after murdering children?
the families sought out the wife and children of the killer
and touched them
offered help
reconciliation
love
for the families, how is it that the first thing they did
was
forgive?
Going Home
(Dylan Paris, December 2007)
My thoughts are sharp, battering
through the mind.
Over the roar of engines I see sky,
grey as tensile steel. A shiver.
Breath is like a phantom,
waving in its white loneliness,
going nowhere.
The roar becomes a scream,
a scream in my heart,
magic turned cold.
Over the pitching roar,
my life is torn apart,
the heart cries injustice.
As the rain begins.
Shambling on the plane,
sleep is welcome,
covering the bleeding void,
cool sweet darkness sweeps over,
anesthetic and warm.
A View From Forever
Copyright 2015 Charles Sheehan-Miles
Published by Cincinnatus Press
PO Box 814
South Hadley MA 01075
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 9781632021199