Let Me Tell You How Sorry I Am

Trey Moody

 

Driving through mountains, I learned

the meaning of May snow, seven pickups,

silent men. Worried, we stood around

a ponderosa pine, somehow immaculate,

despite his red Acura’s young death. My head said,
“Hey!” But who cares? I was wearing shorts

and a t-shirt when a blessed energy pulsed
through everything brand new. They spoke

of a quiet departure: Just follow those truck tracks
down into the warm town below, where people like us
buy groceries and firewood. Then, I bought

groceries. Then, I bought firewood. Then,

I knew I could go anywhere but up.

 

 

Night Poem

Trey Moody

 

It is quietly the middle of the night.

A bright wind flies through my poem.
The wind is sharp, but in the moonlit courtyard
the flags raised at noon now droop
from the tops of their poles like dying flowers.
Time does not stand still for anyone;

it only passes, avoiding eye contact. Unaware
of specifics, he pulls the sheets to his chin.
Soon, he will have to bury someone.

Equally troubling, he must decide

what to wear, and how, exactly,

he intends to wear it.

 
 

Trey Moody was born in San Antonio, Texas. His first book, “Thought That Nature” (Sarabande Books, 2014), won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry. His more recent poems have appeared in The Antioch Review, The Cincinnati Review, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, and West Branch.