WATCHING GRANDMOTHER DIE
Thomas Laverty
I don’t have to tell you the economy is bad.
I can work my way through that.
Let me tell you, I would have jumped from
the great rusty ore docks, by now
but my mother is already screaming for it.
I walked here in the rain to tell you
how much I do not miss the street
I grew up on, or the willow in the yard.
I walked here in the rain to tell you
that I returned the bottles we’d saved in the kitchen.
On the way here, I saw a girl get run over.
Her arms and hair mingled with the back axle.
The driver got out, and walked away from his life.