The Innocents

Mary Surratt Mary Surratt
guilty of innkeeping
fell
like a hundred pounds
of millet

through a hole in the universe,
her parlor undusted
in July heat

as the fight for Lincoln's body
raged in Springfield
and Mary Todd's
clairvoyant saw pigeons
roosting in a fat eave,
which meant to Mary

it was right to grieve
it was right to grieve

Mary Todd Lincoln
 
Sr. Mudd and while Samuel Mudd
boarded a skiff
for the ride to
Tortuga,
catching a nail
on his striped sleeve
 
Edwin Booth
dodged rocks and turnips
on a Baltimore street
thinking of Lear, Prospero,
the Fates, and Corinth

under siege.
Edwin Booth
 
  Leaf Al Rocheleau


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