True Stories

True Stories


by Connie Voisine


Already pregnant, she
writes her name and his,
Lou and Mike, over
the cloudy pictures in True Stories.
Black-and-white pictures
of a leggy woman (Lou) draped,
the arching stem of her throat
almost tears from her head,
so thrown back with pounds
of hair and a dark man’s
(Mike’s) kisses. Done eating,


Mike scrubs the wishbone
from supper and dries it
in the wind on the porch
with Lou and her ancient parents.
All digest and watch cars
go by, what happens every night
when it’s warmer. Mike gives Lou
a leg of the ashy bone. They break it
as the light falls and all
color goes away. The parents


hoot Who won? Who won?
and Mike takes her shorter piece,
says This is the man.
He waves the other part
that kept the joint, says
This is the shovel, and delicate,
he, in his palm, buries
the man with the shovel.

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