LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

to my skin.

      The tortoiseshell cat is satisfied

      to sleep in the cradle of my legs,

      crossed ankle to knee

      like a man.

      She’s making biscuits.

      Needlepoint pricks

      of practiced country cat claws

      kneading my pale, doughy flesh.

      The stray shepherd,

      one eye sky blue and

      the other mud brown,

      is never satisfied.

      But he missed me

      when I ventured off the Ridge

      and into town.

      So he sits

      as patient as he can manage

      and I scratch his muzzle

      and listen to the knock

      of his tail on loose, front-porch

      floorboards.

      We sit in silence.

      Except for the thump and the purr.

      Except for the cardinal

      screaming

      “Wet dew! Wet dew!”

      one last time

      before the light breaks

      the whole holler.

       The Home Cemetery

      We keep our dead

      at the dead end

      of a rutted gravel road.

      Generations filed away

      forever

      in staggered rows.

      They belong to me.

      A birthright of last breath

      And rotting body,

      buried safely beneath

      six feet of soil.

      The dark soil

      I came from.

      Full grown and dirt poor.

      This is my acreage.

      Rich bottomland fertilized

      by bone.

      The cemetery floats,

      a rounded island tethered

      to the mountains

      by creek-bed tombstones.

      Dusted with broom sage.

      Populated solely by lingering souls

      and a stray, persistent

      peacock

      trespassing on my land,

      picking his hungry way

      over my graves.

       Churched

      All the old men

      from the Beartown

      Church of God

      call me Sissy.

      There’s Ligey

      and Whirley

      and Johnny

      and my Mamaw’s cousin

      who found Jesus

      after he beat cancer

      a couple years back.

      They’re working men

      of God.

      They reminisce

      about their drinking days

      and trade around trucks

      and stories about bad kids

      and worsening eyesight.

      When they think I’m eighteen,

      they grin at the possibilities.

      When they find out I’m thirtysomething,

      the grins get a little sad

      and soft around the edges,

      at the thought

      of the waste

      of a good pair

      of breeding hips.

       I’d Melt

      I want the kind of man

      who wants the kind of woman

      who keeps bacon grease.

      He needs to notice

      how it’s so much more

      than stingy sustenance.

      It’s ritual and relish,

      the satisfaction of golden-brown biscuits.

      He has to see

      how it’s more

      than just grease.

      It’s gumption

      and tradition

      strained into a coffee cup

      passed down through generations.

      I need a man to recognize

      the kind of love worth saving.

      I long for a love

      that holds up

      like cast iron.

       Stacking Firewood

      Sticks of seasoned oak

      smack the bottom of my wagon

      as I whittle away at the woodpile.

      Bend and heave, grunt and let fly.

      I suck down the coming snow

      and fill my lungs so deep it stings.

      I find my rhythm,

      sweating steam in the cold sunshine.

      Bend and heave, grunt and let fly.

      I lose it again when I spot a patch

      of purple moss worthy of a poem

      and take it as a sign,

      reward for hard work

      turned to smoke.

       Oatmeal Cookie Communion

      The layered skirttail

      brushing my plump, pink,

      baby cheek

      is plaid.

      Skinny strips of harvest orange

      and goldenrod yellow

      pen in blocks of pea green.

      The geometric fields and fences

      are flip-flopped.

      Planted beneath a swirl of paisley sea.

      A

Скачать книгу