Manolin and Isbel

Jesse Doiron

May 29, 2022

I’ve 

seen the heads of children bloodied by the bat, the monkey bars, and even little fists,

but the bullet  

wound behind an ear now broken bone, pieces

 of his brain, clumped 

and clotted

in dark hair, 

behind his emptied hazel eyes 

and airless smile—

I had not seen 

that kind of

blood before. 

He 

died, they said, quickly, in the arms of Isbel, the little girl from Mrs. Browning’s class, 

who always made 

an “A” in reading. The one he liked so much 

 he said that they

would marry, 

and he would 

make her happy ever after, 

when they were big

and old enough 

for children 

of their own.

Jesse Doiron spent 13 years overseas in countries where he often felt as if he were a “thing” that had human qualities but couldn’t communicate them. He teaches college, now, to people a third his age. He still feels, often, as if he is a “thing” that has human qualities but can’t communicate them.