You and I Both Saw Six Years Old by Amy Alexander

For Freddy Altmann
Born: 9 October, 1896
Died: 14 March, 1903 of Diptheria
Buried at Linwood Cemetery, Glenwood Springs, Co.

You and I both saw six years old.
A grey mud filled your throat the day you died.
I walked too many steps into a fold.

The place I found was foul and terrible, cold
in autumn, pressed down as I cried.
You and I both saw six years old.

I stand and read your marker chiseled bold.
Though I got out, it was with strangled stride.
I walked too many steps into a fold.

The following year, in your town, I was told,
no one could make me confess or confide.
You and I both saw six years old.

As seven came for me, you came here, rolled
in linen, rocks on every side,
I walked too many steps into a fold

to come and see you, again, pulled
wild grasses from the earth for Columbine,
You and I both saw six years old,
I walked too many steps into a fold.

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Amy Alexander is a writer, poet and visual artist whose work has appeared (or is slated to appear) in Memoir Mixtapes, Anti-Heroin Chic, Rhythm & Bones, YANYR Anthology, Mansion Anthology, and Mojave He[art]. Author of Legend of the Kettle Daughter (Hedgehog Poetry Press, April 2019) and The House You Carry Inside You (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2019) and Finding Betty Crocker (Naissance Press, 2011). Follow her on Twitter @Iriemom.