|
A Shooting (Seal Beach Pier - 2011) |
She called me when it hit the news, days after
we signed for the divorce.
The news rang through my inner ear,
rattled the drum the same way
the volume of nearby gunfire does,
like the whine
from the old dial
up connection
we once used,
(pre-marriage) living five thousand miles apart,
to communicate,
before I finally decided, just to be
able to be with her,
to fly through the sky
for twelve hours - at three quarters the speed
of sound.
Then...
silence...
I thought about those
relatives
of the victims,
of their grief,
of their pain
of their regret,
of not being able to
speak
one
last
word
of solace,
of respect,
of peace,
of love.
I thought about the memories
they would have to grasp onto,
just to ease the sheer agony of
letting go.
Like the photos
I held of us,
grievously in my own hands,
all of them
(her and me) separated by
a rip down the middle
(from her tremored rage)
like the scarred features
of the San Andreas fault line
that always threatens the separation between
California and the rest of the family
of states.
I was preparing to load myself
back into that winged barrel of steel,
knowing full well I could never reverse
death or divorce,
knowing with a whole
continent
dividing us,
I would soon become
nothing
but a fading ghost
in her memory.
copyright 2017
RK
Wallace |
