Robert M. Chute
from Robert M. Chute's The Crooked Place:
Fryeburg, Maine: 1990
I went to school here. The high ground
where Pequawket may have been was
a square town with square houses down
black streets. The intervale was still rich
in corn and beans. Kids at play screamed
in the river's shallows. We made
picnic fires, camped, but never dreamed
of wars, courage wasted, hopes betrayed.
And now I hardly remember
swimming in the river or picnics
at Lovewell's Pond where rough timber
tables and benches slept beside
the battle monument, a plain
bronze plaque pinned to a glacial stone.
A few words, a date to proclaim:
cowards, fools, heroes, all die alone.
But it seems as if I can recall
the way the waters split and curled
around the island below the falls
where the quick river Contoocook
joins the Merrimack, swirling still.
In this troubled mirror Hannah sees
blurred faces of the ten she killed,
their limbs still alive as twisting trees.
Downstream in dead, quiet waters
where ancient hemlock hands touch
overhead, faces of the slaughtered
Hannah's acting out their role, how
they hurried from one to one, smashing
each sleeping savage temple in. Now
her trophies simmer in the April
sun: a knife, a hatchet, and ten greasy
scalplocks of black hair. Her eyes bright,
scalps clumped so tight I thought she
held her baby's head up to the light.
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