The Man in the Well

There’s a well behind the feed store Covered up with plywood sheets

Kids dare each other near it Then run laughing down the street

Old Miss Clara says her husband Heard a voice there every spring

Said it sounded just like someone Trying not to need anything

I don’t believe in curses But I know what hunger does

It teaches you to answer To what never calls it love There’s

a man in the well And he knows my name

He drinks from the dark And spits up the blame There’s a

man in the well With my father’s hands He says,

“Boy, you can leave But you won’t understand”

I saw my sister at the pawn shop Selling back her wedding

ring She said, “Some people call it freedom When they’re just losing

everything” We sat outside by the payphone Though neither one of us

had change She said,

“I dreamed I had a daughter Who never learned to be afraid”

I don’t believe in omens But I know what silence costs Some

families keep a ledger For everything they lost

There’s a man in the well And he knows my name

He drinks from the dark And spits up the blame There’s a

man in the well With my father’s hands He says,

“Boy, you can leave But you won’t understand”

When I was twelve,

I threw a stone down Waited for the sound

Nothing came back upward Not echo,

splash, or ground

That was when I learned it Some holes don’t want to end

Some things don’t need a body To become your oldest friend

Last night I walked there barefoot With a lantern and a rope

Not to drag him out of darkness Not to offer him my

hope

I only leaned across the opening And whispered,

“You can stay” Then I heard my own voice answer

From a thousand feet away

There’s a man in the well And he knows my name

He drinks from the dark And spits up the blame There’s a

man in the well But I won’t climb down

I have loved enough ghosts To leave one in the ground

The plywood bends The crickets sing

Not every buried thing Wants rescuing