SOMETIMES THE DREAM COMES BACK TO ME
A short gravel driveway, the tatty wooden fence
that stumbled—this way, that way—
like the strides of a drunkard
from the highway to the makeshift carport
where me and daddy strung a gray tarp
from a sagging oak
to the far side of our trailer.
No, not to stop the rain —for the acorns,
little brown rivets that could punch through
a windshield like a fist through the living room
drywall, mama screaming
You promised, not
in front of the boy.
—from Rattle #72, Summer 2021
Tribute to Appalachian Poets
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Lewis Crawford: “If growing up broke in dirt-poor southern Georgia taught me anything, it’s that people are fragile even in their toughness. From my mother’s heroin addiction to my grandmother working sixty-hour weeks at a nursing home to keep a roof over my head, I’ve seen often how easily things can fall apart. If violence could be any kind of language at all, there’s no doubt that my family would be fluent in it.”
