Were Your Pockets Full of Stones?

I suppose I know now why
you chose the river, reading
that Virginia Woolf put stones
in her pockets to sink herself down.

She was for you a perplexing guide,
she with fierce pride
in her womanhood who
drowned herself rather than
spoil her husband’s life.

At the end she heard voices
that kept her from working,
from even writing a
suicide note properly.

You too wandered off alone
and I wonder, as you
reached the water’s edge,
were your pockets full of stones?

From the forthcoming “Deep River Blues.”