Latimer's statement to the police

Dave Margoshes
From:   Purity of Absence. Vancouver, B.C.: Beach Holme Publishing, 2001.

Let me be clear about one thing:
I killed my daughter.
After the wife and the other kids
went to church, I put her in the half ton,
turned on the engine and we sat there
for a while, radio on, the C&W station
from Saskatoon, the heater rumbling
like a cat on your chest, the stars
twinkling in the sky above us
except that it was daylight and
we couldn't see them. She took my hand
and said Daddy, not that she could, but I knew
that's what she meant.

                                    After awhile,
I got out, told her be right back, ain't
I always? and went into the machine
shed, the hose right there on the bench
where I left it, a black snake in my hand
except hollow and cold, all its poison
already in my heart. It only took
a few minutes. She didn't cry,
and me neither. I stood in the barnyard
in the snow, my boots open, no gloves,
my hands cold, looking
up at those damned stars.

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Dave Margoshes's works copyright © to the author.