ISSUE: Summer 1986
Shelves pegged to time-bleached logs hold
the clear ones, just fat bottles,
big bulbs shedding weak blue and
lavender light in the fusc of
the dust-charged air. The oldest could
be burial urns for all their
ashy sediments. One keeps
the coiled skeleton of a blacksnake
and others the husks of beetles.
And the stone crocks on the ground
store a residue of molasses
thick as tar. The liquor jugs are dry.
Only the kerosene can still
has a yellow specimen, and,
strangely, a black nickel. The building
sags near breaking, ready to
swallow itself and be swallowed
by big pokeweeds and honeysuckles.
the clear ones, just fat bottles,
big bulbs shedding weak blue and
lavender light in the fusc of
the dust-charged air. The oldest could
be burial urns for all their
ashy sediments. One keeps
the coiled skeleton of a blacksnake
and others the husks of beetles.
And the stone crocks on the ground
store a residue of molasses
thick as tar. The liquor jugs are dry.
Only the kerosene can still
has a yellow specimen, and,
strangely, a black nickel. The building
sags near breaking, ready to
swallow itself and be swallowed
by big pokeweeds and honeysuckles.