Her son
The woman ringing up my groceries
had a date tattooed on her arm.
I asked about it and she paused,
The day my son died.
I said I was very sorry.
She shook her head the way
people do to let you off
an awkward hook.
Her finger lingered over
the raised ink.
She looked up from it and said—
My son’s ashes.
*
Bill Garvey grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts, and is a dual citizen of Canada and the USA. He is the author of two poetry collections from DarkWinter Press: The basement on Biella (2023) and his latest, Leaning in the same direction, released this month. Nominated for the Griffin Poetry Prize and Best of the Net, his work has appeared in The Queen’s Quarterly, Rattle, Cimarron Review, and The New Quarterly and others. His short fiction appeared in Close To The Bone Press in June 2026. He currently resides in Nova Scotia and Toronto.
