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