Hem

by Christopher Raley

 

I finally saw you

in a photograph

in a book about you.

 

I love your art

and I love your stories

and I laugh at your big life

sometimes, though your life

is the sadness of a butcher.

 

Like water from a stream

poured out on the ground,

it is enough to know.

And knowing, to say: You

were, after all, very

 

human.