The groaning window
porch fan, green wicker
whirring ice box
full of Orange Crush.
In my weakness
redeeming parts
severe as ever
coffee in a thick white mug.
The smokehouse grease
hot cistern, water pump,
spirea and marigolds, dairy barn,
cigarette in a pink dish.
Right inside the kitchen
Help me. Help me right now
to sit at that table again
one more time.
Inside the person
lives a person who
refuses to help the
person whose source
has been its pride.
To skip, to lift
the flesh struggles
the nose whistles
the mind frets
the eternal scope
My plowed head
watches the captain
on the bridge,
standing still,
coming for me.
My little hands
under nail dirt
and skinned knuckles
hold the dry, warm
hand of my father.
His fingers,
the earnest ten percent
of a life loan,
the fullness of grief
to gain in death.
This grip again
we walk along
a gravel road
and smell the
rich dirt of wish.
I miss the old days
when I didn’t know better
when I didn’t need anybody
when Worldy Goods could be packed
in a back seat in half an hour
and only old people died
and then, at the end of their life.
Freedom’s wage weighed
on a food scale in ounces,
and I water flowers like
it means something.
Go lightly, write, pray.
We’re all Lula Mae Barnes
with four children from another woman
married at fourteen to a cracker jack
horse doctor whose heart we broke.
We never had no cause to leave,
but we did. And we’d do it again.
In early morning slant of light
New day calls itself into being
Caught in the spell
The mountain meets its reflection
Somewhere at the silent water’s edge
The line between them
As thin as enigmatic as the veil
Between creator
And creation
