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The Last Thing



 




 


What binds his raw wrists hard behind his back
is the last and hurtful thing he feels with his hands
in the chill air but the air itself,
as his fingers reach for his other hand.

He wants to hold at the last some familiar thing
like himself, but he can't lock his rigid fingers together.
His nakedness is his own pain,
white, and hard for him to carry.

The wind is like splinters in the gash on his shoulder,
bulging. Cracked blood stiffens the skin of his thigh
and the cold place he was mutilated--
where the ache thickens in yellow bruises.

The grave at his feet is shallow. It is his own.
He dug it. Suddenly he will be clubbed into it.
Soon. And no friend will save him from it
at the very last. Nothing. No one.

He will die. The dying will not be long.
He can say, "Sara." He can say, "Lord Jesus."
"My country." "Good brothers, bless my death."
"Father." Whatever he chooses to say

is the last thing he will throw to the living air
from himself, and the enemy will hear but not understand.
Heavy to his neck, the blow, back,
knees buckling, he falls, knocked



 

forward to the grave. "Sara!" He did not choose.
As he falls, he twists to break the fall with his shoulder.
Why break the fall? Had his head hit the stone
his shoulder struck, death would be easier.

Better this way, with the last and savage thoughts
as himself. Six minutes more. Earth. But harder.
The earth comes down on his back in lumps.
He closes his fingers around the earth

that he catches in his hands and holds. He is breathing.
The earth is falling. He can remember the earth-
the harrowed loam, ready for seed,
For the still seed. He has no seed.
Wheat. Hay. Barns. The brindled cow. Milk
pulled from her udder warm to the pail. Taste.
Earth in his mouth. His last breath,
and that full of flying dirt. Quick.

Sara. Elms. Apple blossoms. Rain. Wet hair.
The hunger for the apple on the bough
most out of reach. Earth. Earth.
The shape of him in earth unmoved.

It will not be hollow. Earth in the urgent jaw,
tongue, teeth, biting earth. Ladders. Apples.