Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh.
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all-Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart-He saw all spoiled. 'Don't let him cut my hand off
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!'
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then -- the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little -- less -- nothing! -- and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.
KELLI
RUSSELL AGODON was born in Seattle,
Washington, in 1969. She received a
bachelor's degree from the University
of Washington and an M.F.A. from the Rainier Writers Workshop at
Pacific Lutheran University. She is the author of Small Knots, finalist
for the 2004 Cherry Grove Poetry Prize and Geography, winner of the
Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award.
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Le portrait magazine