Gail White

The Not Impossible

Everything possible has happened once.

Oedipus Rex was true of somebody.

It’s not impossible that someone killed

his father, accidentally, unknowing,

and later wed a handsome older woman

who brought a fortune with her, and turned out –

we all know how. It’s not impossible

that when he learned the truth he only saw

one way to live with it – to see no more –

and stabbed his eyes. It’s not impossible

that one loved daughter/sister stayed with him,

cared for him, was beside him when he died.

(His wife had long since hanged herself in shame.)

It’s not impossible it happened so.

I never pass a blind man without thinking

it might be him. Because you never know.

Gail White, a contributing editor to Light Poetry Magazine, has been writing poetry since she learned to print. Her latest chapbook, Paper Cuts (Kelsay Books), was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Award. Her work appears in numerous anthologies, including Nasty Women Poets, Love Poems at the Villa Nelle, and Killer Verse. She lives in the Louisiana bayou country with her husband and cats.