The Blizzard

Broadshire Valley, a ticket stub away.
Perhaps I am too reminiscent of that well worn dream.
But imagine - or haunt - I can still remember her smile.
And the first of the snow that covered her train of departure.

I'm six hundred miles away from that train. The blizzard keeps me in.
I've never seen so much grey before. I might've wept at some point.
Wrapped around my naked body, a yellow tanned deerskin.
My boots lay next to a roaring fire, drying, the cabin smells like shit.

I should've felt some fearful compassion, but in truth I've never liked myself.
My boy looked most of all like me. Had it been her, I'm not sure I could've done it.
But there he lies beside the fire, drying. Like some squirrel dead I'd shot before.
Murder? Probably. I'ts me or him. I've saved my life at the cost of losing my humanity.

Gawd I hate this cabin.
Telling, angry steam rose out the back door where I dumped my boy's inedibles.
Some dirty slop, is that all we are inside?
I tried to wash the bloodstains off, my clothes lay on the floor, wet.
This rocking chair, my only friend in here.
Albeit my gun would be, but for the feeling of my son's skull cracking against the barrel.

My Rosey may be back again someday, come spring when the train rides into town.
By then I'd have hidden what I've done.
The winter took the boy I'll say. She'll weep and moan. And I'll tell her I did everything I could to save him.

I should've starved instead.