Читать книгу Local News from Someplace Else - Marjorie Maddox - Страница 14

My baby and I stay home

from the funeral for the murdered child,

unrecognizably battered and stabbed

in last week’s news photos.

The police arrive early

at the church, the estranged wife

and husband, separated by rows of pews,

glare at photographers, suspect

each other. They have both

aimed guns. My husband lights

church candles around the girl’s enlarged

classroom photo, prays

for us. What is safe lurks

nowhere near, doubt encrypting

fear, the way we cross

ourselves in our cloistered home.

We stare nightly at neighbors

walking too close to the nursery window,

too close to the woods

where the girl was found,

her arms criss-crossed just so

as if by a parent who can

no longer sleep.