THOUGHTS OF A POET IN THE RAIN

REGARDING EMILY

by

Gordon Kuhn

Copywrite 9/17/2010

We met her in the month of May

she opted to only up and stay

a month with a trusted, winsome friend

who lived near our closed-in street’s end

 

then summer came and still she stayed

her plans she said had been delayed

yet our friends nerves were getting frayed

he felt that he was being played

 

for a fool some of us had said

his bank account was being bled

and soon he’d be financially dead

but Emily fearless upon his back did tred

 

then came a night in early September fall

when voices raised and dishes crashed against a wall

with Emily’s speech being the loudest of them all

and neighbors pondered if someone the law should call

 

but instead we waited for morning’s burst of light

then out we all went to survey the scene of the fight

and found our friend with smile so bright

a mound of turned soil tamped down quite tight

 

He smiled, wiped sweat from his brow, and happy said

“It’s okay, she really is quite dead.”

then police came later on to lightly tred

upon the spot where Emily had bled

 

they took our friend away that day

for a long-term quiet hospital stay

regarding Emily was all tight lipped they’d say

but failed, somehow, to take her corpse away

 

instead she was left buried beneath the old oak tree

the mound was tamped down quite tight, but plain enough to see

years passed and we, regarding Emily, came looking for that ancient tree

and found the street a golf course now, and Emily beneath the very first tee.