Slewfoot Sighs
The signal’s weak out here—just one bar flickers
like a porch bulb gnawed by moths. We pixelate,
our bodies glitching through the net’s strict parameters:
Care. No care. Care with a side of ache.
The foothills don’t care what we name ourselves. The creek
will braid its name through us, will sing off-key
of farm trucks drowned in its brackish teeth.
We kneel anyway, scrub our jeans with wild leek,
press send like a hymn. Our voices crack
as static—Slewfoot, the old ones would’ve hissed,
seeing us twined in greenbrier through the gap
where the fence gave way. But the land won’t miss
our absence–router’s small red eye blinks back,
proof we were here. Proof we were more than light.
26 thoughts on "Slewfoot Sighs"
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Slewfoot, Shew! As you may say.
Learned a new word and really enjoyed becoming entangled in the brambles of this poem, and will ponder how our digital and corporal selves exist.
Really like:
The creek
will braid its name through us,
Thank you, Bud! I think Slewfoot has a lot of different etymologies but I think back to it as being a devil-adjacent thing that old folks I knew used to mention.
This is gorgeous. I love a poem that I have to figure out and am so motivated to do so. I will be reading this several more times but already have squeezed so much imagery and feeling out of it.
Thank you so much for your reading!
Terrific poem, with stanzas 2 and 4 crackling like an electric fence.
Thank you, Kevin! Having been shocked by a relatively low-voltage electric fence once–this delights me!
I like how “router” just misses having a real name.
I agree with the other comments, this is gorgeous.
Maybe “slewfoot” doesn’ tfeel they are on the wrong path, and sometimes others don’t see their own path as crooked, their own twisty feet.
I love that, Tania! That’s how I link to think of the slewfoot poems too.
Shaun, this is such a wonderful weaving of briered,tangles and blinking technology. Love this poem.
Thank you so much, Rosemarie!
“our bodies glitching through the net’s strict parameters:”
And the last two lines !!!
Thanks for this one, love it !!!!
Thank you, Coleman! I appreciate you!
love the “Sighs” in the title and especially the verb in “The creek/ will braid its name through us”
Thank you! I was going through my poems and wondering which ess-words I’d already used!
Wowsers!!!:
“just one bar flickers
like a porch bulb gnawed by moths”
” The creek
will braid its name through us, will sing off-key
of farm trucks drowned in its brackish teeth.”
And that last couplet, whew!
Thank you so much, Pam!
Your poem moves to a fantastic rhythm. I just love this:
“The foothills don’t care what we name ourselves. The creek
will braid its name through us, ”
So good!
Thank you, H.A.! I appreciate you.
So visual! Wonderful title. Wonderful, and so visual, throughout this all, to an exquisite end: “Proof we were more than light.”
Thank you so much, Michele!
Such a creative poem with depth!
Thank you for your reading and kind words, Linda!
Past, present and future. “The foothills don’t care what we name ourselves,” and “But the land won’t miss our absence” gave me pause.
Thank you, Virginia!
So many lines that took my breath away.
“The foothills don’t care what we name ourselves. The creek /will braid its name through us,” and “press send like a hymn,” and that amazing couplet that ends in “Proof we were more than light.”
I’d love to read a book of Slewfoot poems.
Thank you so much, Karen! Slewfoot was my entry into persona poems and I’ve grown fond of that part of my writing too <3