Apartments full of sleeping students
Draped with white sheets of snow
Over the old apple orchard knoll
Where he shot himself some years ago.
He sat on an old apple tree stump.
Facing south, there was no sun only cloud.
The revolver shiny a few feet from his hand
Now open to the gray overcast shroud.
The clouded-over eyes no longer looking,
Faced upward. The mouth open, teeth dull,
Blood puddled in brown clots on the mud,
Next to the hole on the right side of his skull.
Assume a student, his life unknown pain
Escaping, he thought, days and nights of misery.
With a brief pull of the easy shiny trigger
Died where we left not one apple tree.
Asphalted over his last bloody bed, the mud where he lay.
Awaits my quiet early tread on this sleepy snowy day.