The Fracturing

Originally published in The New Southern Fugitives

​

Before I fracture,

I am pastures of butterweed,

the silence of river bottoms,

gravel roads to so many nowheres,

and the howl of a Tuesday siren.

I am the indigo sky that creeps

over the Baptist church on the hill.

I am Amish buggies on covered bridges.

Country dust. A crow.

I am the curtain of humidity before rain

and the silvered floodwaters

that comb through the furrows

of fresh-tilled fields.

I am a calm so still

the crepe myrtle trembles.

 

After I fracture,

I am cleaned buckets—

clenched cunts—

marijuana and vinyl

floors, checkered—sticky. Sticky.

Faux wood steering wheel,

no seatbelt—open garages—

shadows, rust, tin, tin, tin—

u-turn in the yard—farmhouse.

Lightbulb in the kitchen—

concrete floor, ripped window screen—

no, army crawls in the snow—no,

a soft-mouthed

litter of mutts.