The Hopefuls
and we / went away from each other and worked daily // at not remembering
by R.H. Booker
In the parking lot behind the stadium
near the railroad track where it was
all shadows was the Cedar Elm we etched
four letters into, staring at them as if the tree
held our fate, which cannot be disproven,
and our breath rising towards the cheers
from the stands and the lights contrasted
a sense of hope and we thought we might
be truly one then but we were wrong and we
went away from each other and worked daily
at not remembering and how I came back
to do right by the tree, all to find–
it had swallowed us whole.
R.H. Booker graduated from Texas A&M and served as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps. He now spends his time outdoors as a wildlife biologist for the state. His work has appeared in the San Antonio Review, The Brussels Review, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and others.
