Trey Adams

Rings

We have the same slender fingers, the same blonde hair
between each knuckle bone, and the ring fits as if it were made
for me, but these are your initials carved into its golden face.

Your brother, a father in ways your father hadn’t been, gave
you the ring when you joined the forestry service, and you wore
it until you were ashes, until the funeral home director dropped
it into a ziploc bag.

Sometimes I wish you would’ve wandered off into the woods,
let the maggots have their fill, let the ring fall to the leafrot, but
you chose a dirty motel room, with cup rings on the dresser,
and the phone ringing on the bedside table, and this ring
on my middle finger, until I’m ashes too.

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Trey Adams is a poet and fiction writer living in Nashville, Tennessee. He earned his BA from University of Tennessee and MFA from Stonecoast.