The evening air a sponge soaked
in Magnolia sweat. There’s no escape
from southern belles in denial.
No no reprieve no baptisms in the rain
but still we look for meaning carved
in antebellum inspired architecture.
Nothing here dies except old men
and debutant dreams.
Let us wander these secret gardens
hand in hand unhurried
by the empire-waisted dresses
listing away from the rising moon
under the arms of living oaks
holding up grief-laden clouds.
Category Archives: summer
I Learned People Watching from My Dad, Who Would Sit on a Bench and Wait in Malls and Amusement Parks
Looking at the picturesque surroundings, I want to strip away the years like asbestos and old lead paint, see it pure and dirty. When the proprietor of the Thai restaurant is a little rude I don’t expect different. Vape shops like the one in view from the porch crop up everywhere like kudzu, used car lots, beauty parlors in Eastern Kentucky — but I trust them far less since they insist on pretending they sell pipe tobacco and cigars. Flocks of dirty blondes wearing muted colors and sunglasses that cover carefully buffed cheekbones walk by. They do not look up or speak to me. I want to come back in the winter and be diverted from paths in the swampland park by sunbathing alligators. I think someday I will walk into the ocean and dissolve like soda ash.
heat of the night: July 2023
before she curled up to sleep on the bench, the woman lit a match and burned a small piece of paper she had rolled up. it was a prayer. she wore an old sweatshirt with a ruffled dickey on it, the sort of thing a grandnephew might give for Christmas. people come to the river all the time and burn little prayers. sometimes, in the absence of fire, they leave them on a bench or the wall in case God walks by. the entire wharf is an altar and we are all offered up.
River City Mick 