Mario Duarte

Was a weeping woman

Bending over the grass,

Limbs twisted, blouse

White whorls, lacy light.

Then, the man took

An axe to her—chopped

Her into pieces, the air

Woodsy, sickly sweet.

The man tossed the wood

Into a pot belly stove—

Always starving—the fire

Smoking, swirling sky.

He held his rough hands

To the heat, growing warmth,

Hoped she would not

Haunt his dreams—

With her long, twisted,

Knotty arms reaching out

For him—waving him closer,

“Come home, son.”

How the man wished he

Could have held out just

A little longer—nothing left—

Yet everything still burning.

Mario Duarte is a Mexican American writer and Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate. His poems and short stories have appeared in Bicoastal Review, Muleskinner Journal, and Rigorous, among others. He is the author of To the Death of the Author, poetry, and My Father Called Us Monkeys, short stories.