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Larry Kimmel

To Not And Wish You Had

Think of it. Jenny Wade. The only civilian causality of that three day battle at Gettysburg, eighteen-sixty-three. Killed in a kitchen while baking bread. Killed by a bullet that strayed through the door, which, as a lad, I saw, and the hole, too, that the bullet made, enlarged and worn smooth by all the fingers that had verified the fact. I did not, myself, with finger, further wear away the truth, for proprieties own sake. (For we, I understood, were not so common as to do as common does.) But I wish I had. Still, to not and wish you had, is also an experience.

thirty long winters
a misplaced fidelity
still rankles