Gravestones: A Series of Prose Poems
Elizabeth Howes, Wife of Wallace Fuller Age 22
By Megan Baxter


The young wife opens the door. It is early afternoon. She sets up scrubbing and washing, throwing the dirty water out the back window into the flowers there. In her hair, red ribbons. She can see the hay wagon and the men tossing up forkloads, hay dust catching the light of the low sun. The young wife lights the stove, one hand over the burner, waiting to feel its heat. She is pleased, in the sort of way she had prayed for, to see their clothing hanging together on the line, touching in the breeze as if even her dresses longed for his trousers. In the garden, the tough smell of crushed rosemary and sage, the sweetness of thyme. In her arms, the fresh herbs, pressed against her breasts, scenting her breasts with the smell of cooking, clean house, crisp laundering, hope. In the last light of day he comes down the lane, hay in his beard and in the creases of his clothing, coughing it up. She has sweetened the bathwater with lavender and basil. She has been waiting all day.