A story of echoes
“We are an echo that runs, skittering,
Through a train of rooms.”—Czeslsaw Milosz
ii
the sun’s drunken smile burns, a god in the pale afternoon
a woman shelters on a porch, South Carolina washing stories white as wicker & bone
recount the day her child went long in the ditch, upended
when love lost its laces, forever the wreckage of her heart the Chevrolet steel
crooked as the Angel Oak up the path shade, a pecan pie sits a windowsill
the splurge of mud and macadam and holler in the wind
all those boys gone now, would you be one of them too
culprits nose-picked and buckle prick, waist-tight their tongues
chewing grass like thumbs on braille, heads ached a faded photograph
a girl once entangled over a table’s corner, memory bent
by thumbprint and molar mark, thistle clinging
bluejeaned thighs musical against July’s leather seats, death goes tailing
a bee mummified on the rear seat deck, dry loss at your back daily
down the highway, burs in the gravel, the yellowjacket a thimble of dust and crackle
black legs in long lawns, the tire worn forever black on the road
the ghost tattoo of these things, the gas pedal all accelerator and floor
a white sock in a valley of broken chips found later in the fork of a tree’s knotty fingers
its trunk cracked by fender at the seam, angel arms go green and long and damp with fluid
moss in the branches, plantation hair of former generations, the child is dead
life saw right by through you all, that afternoon
as you broke in the sun till the sun breaks down1
who was it burned love into your bodies over the barbeque
who was it laughed in a skittle at the pastor’s awkward flatulence
who was it growled at the syllables stumbled over
whose pause recited prayer creaking in the chair like a broken wall clock,
rocking, the eulogy fell flat at our feet
tell me your story child, strong enough to light through the buttermilk entire
scraps up the travelway, the numbnut twigs and Bryson’s crab apple orchard
words rot on the branch, an arrival at the departure of the shining in the yard
your dark wood or mine or our both, gone
have you managed the faces in the red soil, the names in the book, the date set down that day
the bee cinders and flower pollen, the shadow rising on the stairs and the rabbit light at night
the bucket in the manifold where life dropped, incontestably
I tire
I tire of invention now, don't you?
1Thomas