Casey Killingsworth
Time and the girl who got killed
I saw a coyote walk straight through our night vision camera carrying the mystery of the world, something so wild cruising through town like a four-legged Chevy. Yes, the mystery of the world is still alive. Consider the judgments we hand down when a girl dies and the boy driver gets sent to some sort of rehab center as if he will come out understanding death. Consider the bureaucrat at the job office who lectured me because I didn’t know how to fill in the part that asks for your middle name. Well, I don’t have a middle name I told him, and I’ve never been to any rehab but I know that girl isn’t coming back and I know that coyote will come back. They always come back. Looking out towards Long Island Mail your friend who lost a son some bread every once in a while. Never gets easy, easier. Get back to him when he thanks you, answer your phone when he calls, look at the pictures he sends of his new house that looks out towards Long Island. Look around your own life and find something there you too can hold on to, something to squeeze that will remind you that you have your kids to call up whenever, that you can just call up your kids for no reason, whenever. |
Casey has been published in numerous journals including The American Journal of Poetry, Better Than Starbucks, The Moth, and 3rd Wednesday. His latest book is A nest blew down (Kelsay Books, 2021), and a new collection, Freak show (Fernwood Press), is due out in early 2023. Casey has a degree from Reed College.