{"id":6371,"date":"2013-04-01T00:10:53","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T05:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"\/nashvillereview\/?p=6371"},"modified":"2015-02-12T14:23:16","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T20:23:16","slug":"think-of-a-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/6371","title":{"rendered":"Think of a House"},"content":{"rendered":"

__________<\/span>1.<\/p>\n

By day it looks like a bad painting,
\npure kitsch\u2014the sky-blue backdrop,
\ngreen tobacco swaying in the field,
\ntwo dogwoods in bloom at each end.
\nIt is summer now,
\nbut if you were the son who lives in this house,
\nyou would remember last winter
\nwhen the cedar fenceposts wore skullcaps
\nof snow, and the yard was punctuated
\nwith three-footed rabbit tracks.<\/p>\n

__________<\/span>2.<\/p>\n

The father doesn\u2019t drink, but he used to.
\nThe mother isn\u2019t happy, but she was
\nand wonders if she will be again.
\nOne daughter is smart, the other pretty,
\nand both believe the pretty one will always win.
\nThe son, who is the youngest, thirteen,
\nmemorizes verses from the Book of Isaiah
\n\u2014enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust<\/em>\u2014
\nand listens in the woods
\nfor what he calls God\u2019s yodel. If he hears it,
\nhe has no idea what he\u2019ll do.<\/p>\n

__________<\/span>3.<\/p>\n

A story about the family might prove helpful:
\nOnce there were pork chops and gravy and sweet corn.
\nThe son ran through the kitchen,
\nand the smart daughter, who was also mean
\nwith the curiosity of smart girls, tipped the pot
\nof boiling water onto him.
\nIt was called an accident, but the son knew.
\nHe glared at the smart daughter as he chewed,
\npressing the icepack his father gave him
\nagainst his scalded arm.<\/p>\n

__________<\/span>4.<\/p>\n

Another: When the pretty daughter was fourteen,
\nshe sat in the father\u2019s lap, but he told her to get down.
\nShe hadn\u2019t felt his erection, and so was confused
\nand hurt. (And what\u2019s worse,
\nthe father hasn\u2019t so much as hugged
\nhis pretty daughter since.)
\nThe mother had always favored the smart daughter
\nwhile the father favored the pretty one,
\nbut after that day,
\nthe pretty daughter was on her own.<\/p>\n

__________<\/span>5.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at the house at nighttime.
\nInsects do their insect business.
\nThe dogwoods blossom a ghostly gray.
\nThe blue curtains make the windows glow blue.
\nWe hear the murmur and see the flicker.
\nWe see shadow-figures going room to room.
\nLet\u2019s make it a clear night, the sky bursting
\nwith white pinpricks.
\nAnd there\u2019s the son, coming out on the porch
\nto piss, tired of waiting on his mother
\nwho has been in the shower for over an hour.
\nHe looks across the field
\nto the neighbors\u2019 house and says,
\nas though everyone in the world should hear him,
\nTherefore with joy shall ye draw forth water from the wells.<\/em><\/p>\n

Okla Elliott<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

__________1. By day it looks like a bad painting, pure kitsch\u2014the sky-blue backdrop, green tobacco swaying in the field, two dogwoods in bloom at each end. It is summer now, but if you were the son who lives in this house, you would remember last winter when the cedar fenceposts wore skullcaps of snow, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-1EL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6371"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10104,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6371\/revisions\/10104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}