Tarit
On the day Tarit marched off to war,
he embraced fair Vekka, pledging fealty,
as her little sister Genki made faces and
tugged at Vekka’s skirts, jealous.
Genki, with her stick limbs and sticky lips
and scabby elbows and nesty hair,
hooted as Tarit trotted
to catch up with his regiment,
and chased after him, waving her snotty hanky,
till her short legs tired
And when death’s racket clamored no more
and Tarit returned to his beloved Vekka,
he found her clasped in another man’s arms,
with a toddler in tow,
and whitewashed fences all around
Tarit took the pendant he’d worn
through seven years of carnage–
a wedding ring for his betrothed–
and untied it from its cord
and slipped it onto a scraggly branch
of the rose bush by the gate,
noting naught but thorns
And as he turned away from the house of his beloved,
he beheld a sprout fruitioned,
and when Genki took the ring from the roses
and slipped it on her finger,
Tarit clasped her hand and brought her close,
and nestled his face in her well-combed hair
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