Liam Rector

And unflinching poem from The Executive Director of the Fallen World:


Woman in the Summer Southern Night

So depressed I thought
Sleeping outside under the stars
Might do something to put

A dent in the biochemistry
Choking me, making me forget
Anything that might make life

Worth living, I went outside
To sleep but found it too
God-damned hot to sleep even

Out there under the stars.
And still I could not find sleep
When a woman came

Screaming from the place
Out back of ours—"Lord, God,"
She said, "I didn't mean

To do it! Lord God I didn't mean
To do it to him!"
She went on like this,

Making it all the way
Out to the highway, screaming
This way all the way.

Almost a half hour of this
Until the highway patrol
Pulled in, followed shortly

Byt the coroner, and finally I got up
And found the woman
Had chopped her husband's

Head off with a hatchet, which
Struck me, a young boy
Unable to find sleep, even

Out there under the stars,
Way out there, come from my room
To try and sleep some,

It struck me,
Given the humidity
As something almost inevitable.

Liam Rector, 1949 - 2007.