Joseph
Known only to nephews and nieces by one sketch
I sent my mother in a letter once
from Cincinnati where I met my love,
I never thought of them a single time,
nor would they be aborning until when,
a decade later, both my sisters grew
to womanhood and wed. I was long dead,
shot at twenty in a stranger's town
by the husband of a woman I loved.
from Oak and Mimosa by Alan Reynolds