The bells worked slow
that cold morning.
Rain slid through cedar branches
and darkened wool hats.
Men stood outside quietly
the old stone church,
boots grinding gravel
into soft brown mud.
Only one coffin came through the door.
Small for its burden,
But costly.
White lacquered boards
polished bright and smooth
like a pleasure boat
no fisherman here
could hope to own.
The brass handles
caught the weak light.
A pale ribbon lay there.
Flowers rested on the lid
careful as blankets
over a sleeping girl.
Her mother nearby
in a thin dark coat
hands folded tight
as if holding
something no one saw.
Their house is small
down the gravel road.
Wood stove burning.
Two lean dogs.
Laundry line swaying
between rough cedar posts.
Nothing there
shines like that coffin.
The village drew closer
around it slowly.
Quiet
the way lake ice
tightens in deep cold.
Her father
should have stayed home
that bitter evening.
But he liked the tavern
down by the dock,
that square yellow window
breathing warmth
into the empty road.
A fisherman always.
Hands cut by line
and cold salt water.
The kind of man
who follows light
without asking first
whose rules it breaks.
Snow began falling
later that night.
His boot prints
crossed the narrow bridge
then wandered slowly
toward the dark inlet.
They found him later
in the roadside ditch
past the alder trees.
I remember him
inside the bar
holding his glass
to the dim lamp.
Half smiling then.
Half ashamed.
He said it to me,
because I read books
and keep quiet
far too long.
"You’re the educated one.
Tell me something.
When a village buys
a coffin like that
for a poor little girl,
who are they
trying to forgive now?"
The river kept moving
under the bridge.
Nets stiff with frost
rattled on their posts.
Smoke lifted slowly
from the small houses
soft and steady
like human breath.