Up the bent walk to
the house door, stops
at the steps, smells
the dryness of fall in
the late October air.
Remembers something
as the breeze tousles
his hair and forgets
for a moment the key
in his hand.
Something a young girl
said, maybe, or a
woman standing, breaking
a sprig of lilac,
turning: eyes damp.
We cannot know what
stops him, what holds
the key suspended in
his hand, his head
turned as if to listen.
As he would not say,
locked on that moment,
his face expressionless
to tell joy or grief,
tempered, far away.
Trent Busch, a native of rural West Virginia, now lives in Georgia where he writes and makes furniture. His recent books of poetry, “not one bit of this is your fault” (2019) and “Plumb Level and Square” (2020) were published by Cyberwit.net. His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Poetry, The Nation, Threepenny Review, North American Review, Chicago Review, Southern Review, Georgia Review, New England Review, Crazyhorse, Prairie Schooner, Northwest Review, Kenyon Review, American Scholar, Shenandoah, Boston Review, and Hudson Review. His poem “Edges of Roads” was the 2016 First Place winner of the Margaret Reid Poetry Prize.
