With the Time She Had Left by Julia Story


 
 

The goats in the photo were all dead
 
As was the grandpa with his bowed legs and cigarette
 
His tall sister and their Ford
 
Most of the trees were dead
 
Having burnt up with the rest of the house
 
And the corn was most certainly dead
 
Digested by cows and rotated through so many miles
 
Of intestines who knew where it could be now
 
Dead was easy
 
Had always seemed easier than living if you want to know
 
The simplest truth of her life
 
Not the mad pull from
 
Hell they talked about in Sunday school
 
Or with a pale circle of family around when she was old
 
She would have no family when she left
 
And it didn’t matter as she held
 
Her own hand through the dim mansion of her head
 
There were mirrors everywhere leading
 
Her to the end and they alone wanted her
 
Even the floor was her mirror
 
Singing into her from underground

 
 
 

Julia Story is the author of Post Moxie (Sarabande Books) and the chapbook The Trapdoor (dancing girl press). She is a 2016 recipient of a Pushcart Prize and her recent work can be read in Sixth Finch, Tinderbox, and Gulf Coast. She is a Midwesterner who now resides in Massachusetts with her partner and two tiny dogs.