My house sits at the beginning
of Dividing Ridge Lane
which is paved for the first half mile
then becomes a shaded foot path
running a deep distance to meet
Five Lick Road which goes
down the valley and crosses
a creek of the same name

Each year Dog Days arrive earlier
and now only dawn allows me
the coolness to walk into the woods.
Ah, the sweet morning when cool breezes
and clear skies let me breathe easy:
in a far hidden pasture a calf cries for her mother,
nearby wild turkeys give me a jolt
when they startle up from their ground nests.

There are a million other reports
that I could give, all ordinary
events to add to my endless iteration:
day lilies not yet fully open,
maples leafing out after a late bitter frost,
the blue hills lingering in the mist
of a sudden silence,
                                      this day will not come again

The house is empty when I come home
I don’t get greeted by the door or followed to bed
My clothes are neatly stacked where I left them
there is no mess in the kitchen 
it feels hollow yet heavy 
Like if I called out to you
Your echo would answer back
Sometimes for a split second I forget 
but reality is bitter and my memory is harsh 
and I am hit by it all again
you are gone 
You’re whole life spent 
and I’m left to wish things were different 

She removes the soles of her feet, 
skewers them on wrought iron rods
from the abandoned carriage house gate,
roasts them over the firepit to glowing honeycombs.

Their wrinkled maps, turned veiny rivulets, 
spill lava onto the greying coals; 
tiny screaming memory passengers, arms skyward
log flume to their cremations.

A rain cloud pours its offering onto the grave.
Her exposed roots plug into the scorched circle, 
she straightens her trunk and branches, 
xylems conduct energy from Earth’s core.

No silt settles in her organs;
only moving water, ancient minerals, moss-filtered air.
Her fronds unfurl slowly,
cupping warm rain offerings toward the sun.  

I didn’t know I was capable
of changing out a doorknob in sixty 
seconds like a race car tire 
until today. A locked in 
spite doorknob, standing between
me and a raging lunatic. 

i’ve been contacted
by The Didact, Motherbrain
set course to 4D.

he told me he’d be my dad
barreling down the gravel road
in a black S-10
country music static 
wind rushing
through open window
dressed like Maverick
from the pirated VHS 
of Top Gun

years later
we fought 
over how I didn’t care
that his father was dying
in a bed an hour away
from lung cancer
because I didn’t want to
work my grandfather’s garden
without him
because I knew
he was never coming home

my uncle threatened to kill me
after he had swung his fists
I laid him low with a bat
a sophomore in high school
trying to think of being 
a grown man
too early

much later
he was dying of cancer
alone in the house, he had 
banished me from 
shaved head
still dressed like Maverick
sores bleeding on his skin

it was Memorial Day
rain slick and gray
I showed up
stood over him with my hand
in his 
as he cried and told me he tried
that he was sorry
for
all 
those things
that had happened to me

I didn’t know what to say
so we talked about
the new Top Gun
I wished that I had a copy
we would have watched it
I could have told him
one last time that I loved him

and I didn’t blame him
for any of it

Ben lives across the hall.
He is hard of hearing.
How hard is a matter
up for debate.
There are variables,
such as:
the person speaking,
the subject of the conversation,
the time of day.
He has saved himself
from unpleasantness
more than once
by walking away,
seemingly oblivious to
the discussion taking place,
claiming later it was the fault
of his old man ears.
I think he is clever
in a twinkly and not at all
mean-spirited way.
I think I might be getting
a little hard of hearing myself.
You know, just like Ben.

Here are a curious amount of receipts:

my mother doesn’t hug me—
she binds me in thorny tendrils—
suffocates me—
and the more I move, the worse it gets.

The thrill of a favorite song starting
at a family wedding reception
is unacceptable.
Getting on stage to dance
sends her into blind panic.
three feet of elevation was too close to the sun for my mom’s
daughter.
The vines surge from her hands, slipping through the
air like dragons, and cocoon around me.
I must not become anything other that
what she predetermined.

Everything I am is uncomfortable to her,
dangerous, reflects poorly on her, and I
don’t like being around her. Still she invites me
home to eat her food. Asks to travel with me to the
next family event. She doesn’t realize that her best
quality is her cooking, and her worst quality
is she taught me to hate myself.

Down a crooked holler where the dark runs deep,
And the mountains hum while the valleys sleep,
Stands a weathered hall of brick and tin,
Where the fire bell waits for the call to begin.

Oh the siren cries through the midnight air,
Cuts through prayer and a rocking chair,
And boots hit floor from a dead man’s sleep—
For a neighbor’s flame or a hillside steep.

They ain’t paid in gold nor promised rest,
Just a patch on the arm and a willing chest,
With a hand-me-down truck and a tank half full,
Still they answer fast when the line goes dull.

Old men, young boys, and a mama or two,
All bound by a vow that they see it through,
From chimney sparks to a barn gone red,
To the wreck on the curve where the blood runs dread.

Oh the radios crackle like a preacher’s fire,
Calling saints and sinners ever higher,
And the mountain roads twist sharp and blind,
But they drive like hell with a steady mind.

There’s a cross on the wall by the turnout rack,
And a list of names that ain’t coming back,
Each one carved where the shadows fall—
A quiet roll in that firehouse hall.

Still the coffee’s strong and the laughter rings,
Between the calls and the bitter things,
For they know each dawn is a borrowed grace,
In a hard-lived land and a stubborn place.

So if you pass through where the ridgelines stand,
And you see that hall by the gravel span,
Say a prayer for souls who won’t stand aside—
When the siren sings through the mountains wide.