The low, evening sun lights the length of the ridge
like the broad, woven wick
of one of grandma’s kerosene lamps,
the ones that sit in her house
with the same strange uprightness
and hot, costume jewelry glow
as her resurrection lilies. 
Old fuel thick as nectar rests inside
their muggy frosted-glass bases. 

The porch bulb comes on
and we’re still shin deep in creek water
trying to coax crawdads
as quick as a trick of the dying light
into plastic cups. 
She calls through the aluminum gray screen door 
into the aluminum gray evening:
“Best get in,
before ol’ Raw Head n’ Bloody Bones
comes outta the woods fer ya’.” 

We are unmoved.
We still have blackberry sugar in our bloodstreams, 
drying our limbs tough as brambles,
staining our grins the deepest shade of sunset,
and leaving our tongues tart as backtalk. 
What could he possibly do to us, his kin?