I keep my mouth shut.
If it weighs on me, good—
I’ll be mindful.
If I confess, I confess to weakness.

One day, all will be revealed.
That’s what the book says.
Doesn’t it? The book I read
before that day, on that day?
All will come to light, and
every grief sung to heaven.

That, of course, is the beginning
of the end of the world.

 

 

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William Coleman is a high school English teacher in New Hampshire. Cofounder of the Star-Splitter Academy, he is a former teaching fellow at Harvard and served as managing editor of Image and executive editor of nonfiction for DoubleTake.

 

 

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