Shunned

Where he was now was not where he had
been, but he had done what he had done

and now found himself far from where
he’d been
born. He sometimes felt as if

he was swimming. He remembered         when

he had planted bulbs below the window
for his mom                   after his dad died,

blooms to bloom after he was gone,
too, and digging out the red roots,

digging out the rusty twisted wires,
an old connection that he worried was still

live   still thrumming        with what’d happened.

It was never gone, what he had done,
what he had done to them. He carried it,

he wore it like a skin, breathed it in,

out.
What he had done back then was him.

He usually wore a mask now, avoided
people’s eyes, certain that they could see

Shunned

what he was, monstrous, what he had done.
The future was proleptic, was the future

perfect: I will be gone before they can

before they have       before they cut me out.