William Kemmler Remembering his Wife

William Kemmler was the first man to die in the electric chair, having murdered his wife Tillie with a hatchet in 1889.

I was not a good husband.

Whiskey lay like piss in dozens of glasses,

I pissed holes in the floor, drowned the mice.

I tore through our small life,

streaked like lightning, my blood

boiled down thick, my eyelids

permanently swollen. She sidestepped me

whenever she could. I studied

her hair, coiled and frowzy with light,

the sweat beading on her upper lip. The first blow

I though she’d fall apart easily as

a jug breaking, streaming water.

Seventeen cuts, her skull sharded, a map

of red drops on the wall.

Some country I have never been.

Do you understand me?

I stood back, the continents shifted, the new country

raised up on the kitchen wall, I saw it.

I do not avoid death, not since.

We have passed each other, nodding, he knows

I am his twin, his face in the mirror.

I straighten my cuffs.

Everything there is to fear I have already seen.