Stories

She told me only three stories In the week before she died

The first about the child she'd lost A boy just seven

A climbing accident that summer She'd taken a cabin in the Pyrenees

& the second was not a story at all But simply a description of the Alfa Romeo

Her husband's lover drove up To the door of their house the day he left her

It was the color she said of a mustard field & then she turned to me & held out a snapshot

She'd taken from the drawer of her bedside table A photo of herself on an empty pier at twenty

Nude she recalled beneath her robe of copper orchids Which required she insisted no explanation but instead

As she required of me just this song of simple mystery