Stroke by Zoe Taylor

Stroke by Zoe Taylor (23) Because he loved themHe could not let them see him broken.He took the gun from the drawerAnd pressed it to his skull. Perhaps his life skittered before his eyes,Bright as a hummingbird’s wing.I don’t know, I wasn’t there;Nobody was. Perhaps he saw his wife who always stood beside himLike a tall, dark tree,Her branches reaching out, instinctively. Perhaps he saw himself in the canoe, streaking across the yardFlooded with winter’s water,To rescue the white chickensDrowning in the coop.His little sister peering out at himThrough the flyscreen window,Knowing there was no greater hero. Did he see, as his finger curled round the trigger,Like a closing apostrophe,The end of everyone’s life?Or his daughter an ivory vaseWho would walk alone down the aisle, Or his son’s vacant eyes and beaten smileWho found him at home in the hallway,On the floorOn the walls,Soaked into the carpet,A black heart lying beside himThrobbing hot,While his own, inside him, was still.