The Stone House

There’s a house
a half an hour south
of town,
built of stones
my father hauled
from down the road
in his old Ford
Fairlane. He built it for
my mother when she asked.

A rare man sees
the monument to his
life rise
before his
death. A rare man sees
his own
headstone.
By this measure, then,
he was a lucky man.

Not so
my mother, who
was left behind
to tend
that carefully
constructed tomb,
to keep it neat—in case,
just now, he might
be coming home.

-B.K.