A Man’s Hardest Time
Mary Winters
was after the divorce though
he was the one who insisted --
reverse chivalry; he was the
one who briefed the kids
(her lunatic with grief).
The man now had to learn to
wash dishes. A photograph
shows him with bubbly hands
in the sink, plaid dish towel
over his shoulder, careful and
serious. He hoists a plate onto
the drying rack; still quite
a lot of black in his hair.
Family grapevine said he woke up
crying in his sleep. One night
he felt his car drive over a
human body -- “couldn’t have been
anything else” -- on a back road
near home. Police said the man
was dead before he struck --
anyway: it was the night he
“hit rock bottom.”
