The pine martin watches, the wren takes flight, as men circle ‘round and the cutting begins. When it is finished, her rings Will tell the story – if anyone stops to look. Some parts dark and heavy, others soft, almost silver in the light. The measure of her final age as a tree, the last […]
driving home from the orthodontist this morning, I’m thinking about the way birds fly while peaches are ripe & dew-damp & eager & you can’t help but let the juice explode inside your mouth & have you ever seen a hummingbird suckling its feeder? as if she’s trying to get out every last ounce of […]
I’m my father’s green thumb turned hard from the weeding, plucking out the overgrown. They whimper at my hand, clinging to Earth, damp with dawn. I cry, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. The roots surrender. This corpse at my palm- I place into the basket. When I walk home I cry with the writhe […]
1. 1918 What was it like for you that last summer, the humidity of cicadas endless as the ocean between the sunny fields of Romania and this throw-away street in what they call East St. Louis? Were the clouds too low, the children too loud, or, even worse, afraid to speak at all while your […]
You pen a note to your friend in math class asking my friend in phy-ed if she’ll tell me during lunch that you want to meet me after school so we can walk home together. I find you behind the buses and we move down the sidewalk, our coats touching along their sleeves. My fingers […]
I like the way the paint peels off the ceiling at Cemitas Las Poblanitas—full, satisfying sheets drooping down—and the way the guitarist laments with his frail voice as he walks behind us while we shop for shirts with blue skulls and the city’s name to prove we were, in fact, here. I can never figure […]
Clayton Spencer is an Appalachian poet from Southeastern Kentucky. He holds a BA in English fromthe University of Kentucky.
My mother calls me one evening to tell me I can no longer call her by our name— Or to ask me, rather. To grant her permission to sever the nominal bond between us, ever present since birth. I tell her, “It’s fine by me, it’s not my name,” even though it is, of course. […]
We found a raspberry patch in full bloom threw them into the brooding, balmy sky turning raindrops into gumdrops. The sweet drizzle stained our feet with purple sugar until Old Man Sullivan caught us– muddy but giggling. Summertime sun was sepia-toned sweltered in the fever of dysfunction back at home. We would walk to […]
My bones are the origin of small raging fires Sparking violence, body against body, Like any garden trying to survive among Deadliness. My atoms are weeds pitted against flower And bloom Of myself. Pain hushed into embers, Sometimes – As wide and endless as a mouth to hell. I have died many times, Intimately, unforgivingly […]
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