We saw them walking
hand in hand- the one, slightly
in front of the other.

We watched them walking,
just outside our garden gate,
past the old Winthrop house,
where Pine and Filbert

intersect. We felt
the crimson tracer tag
our retina’s. Mark
us Barska red for –

Stop, Miss Alba …please…

Miss Alba, at her window
box,her M16 cradled on
her pinched envelope,
candy – button pink shutters,

Miss Alba, please you musn’t…
What about St. Francis?

THUNK
THUNK

took the shots . Elijah
smiled a dark whirlwind smile,
as if he had just realized how
easy it is to slide lips over teeth

and I pulled on my HAZMAT suit,
with its bouncy booties
and oven mits that smelled
of equine and NH3.

Went into the shed,
where Mama used to keep
he garden tools to nurture
plump bulbs in the daybeds.

I buried them up on the Hayden’s Pass
(a hilltop, that over looked their town)
along side the other late infected.
Piled them high with gravestones

to keep them in their place.

I think I knew that one- she used to
sit behind me in Algebra 2…

I told em’ you can’t go walkin’
about in the day. I told em’
they shouldn’t do that in public –
where God en’ everybody could see.

Yes – she lent me a pencil sharpener once-
the size of a silver dollar with a clear domed cap…
I told em’ the mind plays tricks sometimes.
That small towns have long memories-

No – she wasn’t an animal at all.
She would most certainly go to heaven.
I watched her head swell and burn
in a rusty metal can- I told em’ to forget.