Holly F. Pettit

A Fact That Is Not True (for Ramakrishna) When the baby was born we saw Quentin shining out from those new eyes.  Gone but six years, we knew him the instant the nurse held him up, as he tried to focus store-bought eyes to find us ­ him so mucky and proud after his journey through the underworld, bright as a stitching needle under fabric piercing through to surface again. With the spirit back, packed in new crating that coughs in its crib at night, sputters and gops on toweled shoulders, we miss the thirteen-year-old body which has not returned, which even now is making oxygen, iron, and salt in the dirt beneath the stone that says Quentin will never be here again, the stone which lies and truths back and forth, dragging us down its drunken path.

Copyright © 1999 Holly F. Pettit All Rights Reserved