Last Words

Tell me of the night your mind got ahead of itself.

Was it like the head of a racehorse, chopped off

at the neck. Triumphant, ahead of its own body,

looking back toward its own shocked withers. 

Tell me why you did it, though you felt letters

tangling like loose thread in your throat,

clinging and clawing to grasp one another

with frayed string fingers. Could you feel those

eight nails dip in and out of the flesh of your palms

in jagged spasms. Were the words caramel

sticky and sweet on your tongue. Could you taste 

them or were they lost, buried beneath layer after layer. 

As you lie now, drowned under dirt and words and letters.

And I’m left kneeling by farewell script carved in slate.

By Eileen Ellis