Julie Farstad, It Could Have Been So Different, 2011 (Artist Website)
Oil on claybord, 10 x 8 inches
Home from our wedding,
we found the oldest picture
of you with your mother
soaked in bourbon
on the backseat of our car.
Audubon’s sketches were eaten
by rats. A mischief of kittens nesting
in his life’s work: thousands
of renderings of rare Southern birds.
Your mother gone years already,
birds migrating to another continent
for the winter.
You told me once
that if something ever happened
to me, you’d never marry again.
Your needs could be met
by prostitutes. Sweet nothings.
All of those animals, their likenesses,
were drawn again, but better.