He presses his back to the boards,
breath ragged, lungs burning,
gunpowder thick as molasses in the air.
Blue coats in the trees,
rifles cracking like a carpenter’s hammer,
nailing the lid shut.
He don’t pray.
Ain’t no salvation for men like him,
just ghosts whispering in the wind,
whispering his name.
The letter —
creased, sweat-stained, folded tight in his fist,
smudged ink,
her name curling like a ribbon at the top.
Emily.
Didn’t send it.
Couldn’t.
Too proud.
Too damn stubborn.
He told her he’d come home.
Told her not to cry.
Told her war was a man’s duty,
a righteous thing.
Lies.
All of it.
His fingers shake,
not from fear, not from pain,
but from knowing she’ll never read his words.
Never hear him say he was wrong.
Never know he wished he’d left the musket in the mud
and ran home barefoot through the cotton fields.
A bullet tears through the pine by his head.
Splinters rain like sleet.
He grips the letter tighter.
The paper crumples, fragile as a bird’s wing,
fragile as the last thread holding him to the world.
The sun sinks red behind the trees,
and he knows —
it’s the last light he’ll ever see.
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