sylvia ann manning | zorn

Zorn

(note of December 2 to Tony, justified)

I mailed an official copy of your
death certificate at post office Larry
Hamilton was with me he was doing
things at the house like getting your
dad’s radio to work the one we
inherited that his widow didn’t want
so we’d been to Radio Shack for the
least expensive antenna for FM

from the post office parking lot one
looks across the town’s main street
to see begin the street where you
died when your new Toyota went off
bridge for no good reason with a
sharp left there just past the school
for kids in trouble

so we drove along that street
(Saunders) past your last stop sign
before your last turn onto the street
from which the truck would take you
left again off bridge into rocky creek
bed and only then did I realize your
last stop sign was where a street
called Zorn met the one we’re on.

What did they grieve, old Germans
who named things here? There’s
that little town on what was once a
farm to market road, near us, also
Zorn. (We never learned much
German, you and I, but even so —
we knew zorn means anger.)

Dec. 3, 09


0 Replies to “sylvia ann manning | zorn”

  1. my sweet sister, Sylvia…a new widow with so many “whys”. He, Tony…is only gone physically. He is here every minute.

    I love your poem, sister SAM.

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