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

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.

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