I'm Sorry Wilson Pickering
by Ace Boggess



I look down & see I’m standing on your grave
its small bronze plate sans stone or earth-rise

I meant no disrespect but blinked & you were there
a flickering apparition of you haunting no one but yourself

besides who do you think you are anyway
to have died in 1890 four score plus one before my being born?

you’re not here to tell me about some minor battle in the Civil War
in which you shot & killed a man for something you believed in once

leaving history to name you saint or cutlass-wielding pirate
except that history has forgotten you

not even a gadfly squashed between pages of a history text
who are you Wilson Pickering? your name

sounds an awful lot like Wilson Pickett
who sang “I’ve Come a Long Way” & “In the Midnight Hour”

doesn’t matter you didn’t stick around long enough
for rhythm & blues or even the beginning of the jazz age

oh but excuse me I must get back to the circle
Wilson Pickering I just wanted to let you know

I apologize for showing you the flats of my feet
to acknowledge you & maybe mourn a little

which is better than what I came for &
at best a moment’s distraction for us both





Illya's Honey Literary Journal

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