A Small Hot Town
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by Collier Nogues |
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The river its balm.
I spend a lot of time
waiting in the car,
nail file dust sifting
onto the gearshift.
Two corner stores gone
and a handle of gin
under the Walk sign.
The gin drinker is
uncertain he’s here.
He’s in the war.
Wind blows a hat
past the court’s lawn,
a balloon
from its gravesite tie.
The graveyard is
the town’s high hill.
Salty, sure, and a thrill,
at home in the hot sun
with not much on.
Reaching for eggs
in the dry house
of hens, or reaching
into a slaughtered hen,
plucking her clean—
close-mouthed,
I wouldn’t say
anything bad
about anybody.
Then I grew
into my ugly,
said plenty,
dropping quarters
at the coin laundry.
The sound of water
turning over water
was a comfort,
the sound of someone
else’s things.
There’s only one
wing in our hospital.
It’s sufficient.
So is the one road
out of the county.
You can drive
your whole life
into its macadam,
no matter. June
crosses crosswalks
in the noon air,
greasing gears
so gently
I can feel it
in my ears, unrelenting,
busy as an army
in its foxholes.
About this poem:
"I grew up in a very small Texas town. Writing this poem, I tried to use clipped lines and assonance to get at how static and unbusy and circular high summer feels there. What surprises me, though, is the cynicism of the speaker, her defensive posturing against the advance of time and the world beyond the town. The poem has turned out to be about fear perhaps more than anything else."
—Collier Nogues |
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Copyright © 2013 by Collier Nogues. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on July 5, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive. |
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