Shallow

At the northeast end of the orchard,
near a large brush pile waiting to be burned
she dug the hole, not only because the soil was
less rocky but also because the harvested field
was perfumed with fallen Fuji apples.
Two nights, in the moonlight,
forming blisters no one would see,
the pick axe clawing at tree roots.

Tonight the moon was waning, as she crossed
the threshold into a dusting of late autumn snow.
Fifty one years of first snows and she was stilled by it yet.
The air chilled her teeth, her throat, her nostrils,
deliciously racing down to her lungs. She walked
toward the northeast, the weight of the pistol in her
coat pocket thumping into her thigh. She approached the
hole roundabout so she would not have to look into it and
slowly backed up until the heel of her boot met the rim.

Reaching into her pocket, she gripped the pistol and positioned it
behind her right ear, the muzzle pocketed behind her ear lobe.
She did not want to see it, did not want to be the one to pull the trigger.
But she could not allow anyone else the job.

She thought the impact would cause her to tumble into the hole.
She thumbed the hammer back but it didn't catch and fell on the cartridge
and in that instant, she did not see her life spinning out before her,
her childhood, her loves, her children. No bright light, no choir of angels
or howl of heathens.
Instead she worried if she had needed a larger caliber for this final task.

Her legs crumpled and she went straight down
as if this was the very second in her fifty first year of life
that her skeleton collapsed under the weight of her own flesh. Into the
grave she went, in the freshly dug edge as if she were laying down to nap.

She'd made the hole shallow, hoping that when it was
filled, the rain would still reach her, and come spring
she might blossom.