Bedside Reading

In his careful welter of dried leaves and seeds,

soil samples, quartz pebbles, notes-to-myself, letters,

on Dr. Carver’s bedside table

next to his pocket watch,

folded in Aunt Mariah’s Bible:

the Bill of Sale.

Seven hundred dollars

for a thirteen-year-old girl named Mary.

He moves it from passage

to favorite passage.

Fifteen cents

for every day she had lived.

Three hundred fifty dollars

for each son.

No charge

for two stillborn daughters

buried out there with the Carvers’ child.

This new incandescent light makes

his evening’s reading unwaveringly easy,

if he remembers to wipe his spectacles.

He turns to the blossoming story

of Abraham’s dumbstruck luck,

of Isaac’s pure trust in his father’s wisdom.

Seven hundred dollars for all of her future.

He shakes his head.