Found
       

The fire's burning down. You asked about
the fellow who went missing years ago.
That's fair. You've told me several things you ought
not to have known tonight. There's one I do.
I didn't know him, nor did anyone
who lives along this road. It's dirt and stone
for ten miles through the forest, out of town.
You got in at night, so you didn't see
there's nothing here. What few houses we have
are spread out and hidden by the road's curves.
The paper had his picture once a week.
His wife must have left it with the police.
I don't mean that she left town—no, she stuck around,
alone in the house where they lived, along
the water, hoping, she said, that he would
come back, that he had run away,
and he might have, but he didn't get far.
No story said what everybody thought,
that there had been a hunting accident
years ago, in the bush, just two of them,
or was it a trip to find firewood.
He'd shot his friend to death, that much we knew,
but charges never came for accidents
that didn't involve spirits or blind rage.
Mistake or careful planning, either was the same.
But that would have nothing to do with this.
Weeks passed, and then a couple of months.
It was late October when the ground froze
and the cold seemed to settle something.
They found him at the woodlot up the road.
The owner had been loading up his truck
to take a cord to me that afternoon.
I'm ready for the snow before the frost
—we're burning what I stacked and split last June.
Cars drove by on the way to work each morning
and then in the evening on the way home,
all just to see the spot where he was found.
No need to say that charges never came,
but then they didn't know for sure what happened.
Where in the woodlot, what injuries
or what position—don't ask, I didn't hear.
Stories, such as they were, passed around
—an affair, didn't matter his or hers,
a suicide, an old debt. A new one.
I've stayed on here, though no one asked me to.
You think a girl like me would be afraid
of the ghosts, whoever did it—the dark
evenings getting darker by the day?
I still leave the lights off for a sunset.
I'll burn it, I'll burn it all, I said,
and so I have. I did. The end.
You'd better throw another log on top.

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Copyright © 2019 Michael Goodfellow All rights reserved
from Nashwaak Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission