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Bed
Outside Conceptione', Honduras, a man
Walks the scorched edge of a deserted
Road with a bed on his back.
He carries it like a second set of bones,
His own or someone he loved.
Barefoot, bent from planting maize
And beans, the man's back curves
To meet the rack of rods and springs.
Perhaps he found the bed, his first,
Dumped by the side of the road,
Or he is leaving or going to a woman,
Or a child survived or died in this bed.
Perhaps he made a world once in this bed.
We cannot see desire or loss on the man's face,
Know only that he seems determined
To bear the weight of it.
Christine Leche
Christine Leche is the Academic Director of English, Communications, and Foreign Languages at the University of Maryland University College, European Division. Christine is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, and her work has been published widely. She currently lives in Heidelberg, Germany.
