VALLEY

by Lydia Moyer

I remember wild persimmons

Along the valley road

The day they found Hannah’s bones

I ate the wrinkled fruit on the tree

And you ate the soft fruit on the ground

We walked in farmers’ fields

Followed the tracks of machines over sparkling soil

Past walnuts piled like cannon balls

There was talk of roads

Of building

And making way.

You saw through the second story

Not large, you said,

Grand;

The clear-cuts dark with winter architecture in the cold sun

how different your life would have been to live here

I said

Yes.  

all that debt you said

and I did not reply.