I have been sitting here
Since four forty-five
And now it is six
I have been sitting here
Under the big pine tree
Beside the driveway
I guess it is time
Time to give up
For tonight
But I will come back
Tomorrow
At the same time
I know it has been six months
And he hasn’t come
But I can walk around
And stretch
I know that when he got sick,
Sometimes
He would go away
For a few weeks
But he always came back
Eventually
But this time it has been six months
And I have been here
Every day
At four forty-five
Waiting for the car
And the shouts of
“Daddy’s home”
He is good to me
He would let me walk with him
On Sundays
When he would not go to church
And go “walk in his pines”
The red haired woman
With the green eyes
Told him he needed to go
He would smile
And say
He was “communin’ with nature”
She didn’t fuss
Too much
Then he got sick
Guess real sick
And he was gone
For awhile
But then he came home
In Blair Falls’ ambulance
Then I didn’t see him much
Things seemed to change.
He came outside
Once
For a few moments
Went back in
Quickly
I heard him say he was tired
But he hadn’t done
Anything
He used to be big
Strong
He has lost weight
A lot
The times he goes away
When he returns
He is always smaller
The red haired woman
With the green eyes
Had to buy new pants
And shirt
For a doctor visit
I was curious
So I looked in a window
One day
And this wasn’t long
Before the last time
I saw him
He was lying in bed
There was no wall switch
For the overhead light
So a string
Ran from the bulb
And was tied to the bed
He lay there
And twirled the string
It made a little clinking noise
When it hit the bulb
I could not see his face.
Sometimes,
And I have been on vigil
For six months
The red haired woman
With sad green eyes
Stands on the side porch
And watches me
For a long time
I can tell she is crying
I guess she feels sorry
For me
I don’t know what her problem is
But I wait
Each day
And I am satisfied
That one day
He will come up
Driving that ’59 Ford
And I will greet him
Like always
But now,
Here comes Leon
In the white Chevy
And I take off after him
The red haired woman
With the sad green eyes
Found Lassie
In a field
A mile up the road
Near Preacher Cloninger’s
She collected her twelve year old son
And a shovel
They went to bury her
It had rained
Hard
For two days
When he dug the hole
He tried to move Lassie
With the shovel
Brown, putrid liquid
Left her body
The boy got sick
But finished the burial
Lassie had chased Leon
One time
Too
Many
David Richard Huffstetler
2305 Hathaway Road
Raleigh, NC 27608