Out of a lattice of poplar
\nonto one road
\nbanked by a thunderstorm\u2014
\na burden of new leaves in the boughs
\nand below fresh wildflowers cover the dead,
\ndrones of ants hold their music\u2014
\nlaugh, the voices of birds chant
\naround the bend. Cropless hillsides
\ntracked through by rib-shown cows,
\na lame mule hobbles
\ntoward a pond
\nwhere two cygnets splay
\ntheir necks. They take shelter
\nfrom an early night rain, bob
\ntoward shore\u2014water
\nblue as the air-starved lips
\nof a child.
\nIt\u2019s summer again.
\nMoths slip through open doors
\nand land on shuteyes\u2014
\ncold ash. The orange groves withered
\ndown south, and now peaches
\nare picked one at a time.
\nOver a wall of spruce
\nstars rattle the ichorous dark\u2014
\nthe crane-fly orchids
\nspear up,
\nthe spotted touch-me-nots
\ncover a blinded black snake
\none thread of blood drawn from its mouth.
\nAbove me the moon holds light through mist
\nlike a fingerprint. Wrapped up
\nin mosquito weed and mud
\nmy boots scrape away
\nat ground.
\nThe rain takes a breath.
\nAcross a creek
\none bridge stands with names
\ncut lovingly into the rails\u2014
\nit\u2019s not true,
\nwhatever promises
\nwere carved back then.<\/p>\n
\u2767<\/p>\n
Once I watched my grandfather
\ncut through a nail-spiked board\u2014
\na shower of sparks
\nover his hands. I thought
\nhe could hold that fire
\nup against the sky forever.
\nBut after his death
\nI walked circles
\nthrough a snow-filled parking lot
\nuntil my feet turned purple.
\nLater I would think\u2014
\nshadows of beech trees
\nare not the same as the shade
\nof clouds over stone-bald mountains,
\na deep green under a banded sky
\nof late day\u2014the twilit glow:
\nhot irons pulled from flame.<\/p>\n
Hours pass
\nwhile my mother and stepfather
\nsleep above me.
\nIn the kitchen
\nlight breaks into wisps
\nacross tile floor
\nlike hooks
\nthrown from a boat
\nto drag a lake bottom.
\nI\u2019m thinking about the ground,
\nhow I\u2019ll be taken apart
\nand the space of my body
\nwill be left
\nas night crawlers
\npick clean my skull,
\nuntil the bone
\nso over-white
\nresembles a thicket of blackberries,
\nor a pale dog
\nwho unknowingly
\nbeds down
\nin sweet grass sprung out of me.<\/p>\n
Out of a lattice of poplar onto one road banked by a thunderstorm\u2014 a burden of new leaves in the boughs and below fresh wildflowers cover the dead, drones of ants hold their music\u2014 laugh, the voices of birds chant around the bend. Cropless hillsides tracked through by rib-shown cows, a lame mule hobbles toward […]<\/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":[12],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-23X","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7933"}],"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=7933"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10217,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7933\/revisions\/10217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}