Belle was her name
The first time that I saw her she was
reading the same book I brought to the park.
Lewis under the reds, the browns, the golds of an oak.
I wrote her letters
in my finest hand for a year.
She typed back from Washington D.C. all her fears
of “growing old with the wrong man,” of “those southern mores.”
Oh Belle! I could tell your heart was gold
underneath the cold precautions that you told me you did grow.
I proposed inside an old oak grove,
but you told me that you couldn't love me.
I knew that it wasn't so.
Belle said the rows
of houses would depress anyone
who had tasted life. I didn't know what she meant,
but Belle was never one to throw out bathwater with care.
I told my mom and dad
Belle would be my one and only.
Over the heir-loom table, gla**y eyes met.
A proud father's words were all I needed to hear.
The twisting trunks outlined
by half a moon. The chilled breath.
Her seat on a stump. My shoes and knee in the mud.
She broke it all in my mind.
She broke it all in my mind.