091615   091624

Lev Tolstoy told some things 
Sophia at seventeen didn’t need to hear
the telling was less for her
than his notion of Christ-like honesty. 
In later years he ached to live a peasant’s life
to relinquish princely entitlements and royalties 
except Sophia was mother of 14 
and objected to paupering their kids.
Her decades obsessing with his foolishness paralleled
his decades of scheming to impoverish them
when he was dying at last he left old Sophia
Leo traveled one train stop from their home
and too ill to continue
he bedded down in the station and locked her out.
The photo shows her peering at him through the window
he is lying there in good conscience to die in peace.