SarahNewman

The Solace of House Fires

in less than a year it won’t be a house
only a pile of singed boards and scorched cement
some scraps of the old tin roof scattered about
the only reason it has remained so long
is that we are constantly canning
beans, corn, kale and collards
we paper the walls in florals from 1987
and duct-tape plastic over the windows
to keep out the Kentucky January
the reason it has stayed a house since my granny died
is that her husband still lives there
with a shot gun and a breathing machine
in a week or two he won’t be there
to hold it up
or keep us coming inside

The Solace of Fences

green blue grass grows wildly
across the field we have put a fence on
and a spruce sits heavily in one corner

the birds are no longer afraid to fly and land
in our expanse of fenced bluegrass
the dog is dead

and can no longer harm them
now we find nests in the trees
nests in the eaves

nests in the rafters and above the windows
looking in on where my parents
undress

birds observe their nakedness
stripped and bare as I
have never seen

The Silence of In Betweens

For me, life is a series of pauses.
Things stall me like burning does fire:
wheat dancing with rain,
statues of Mary,
the sweet scent of apples in June.
I stand outside with the heat lightening
thinking of snow boots thick with salt
and all of the winters these 23 years.
I lie naked in the pauses
and silent in the in betweens.

Lullaby

Go to sleepy little baby
Go to sleepy little baby
When you wake we’ll pat a patty cake
And ride a shiny new pony

my granny sat on a porch swing
mounting and unmounting the bits of sky
that fell beneath her legs
and the baby between them

Go to sleepy little baby
Go to sleepy little baby

her husband muffled the couch
in a whiskey slumber
and she sang to him through the cracked window
almost more than to her babe

When you wake we’ll pat a patty cake

they woke up the next morning
him on the sofa and her in the bed
five children squeezed into the attic room
and the baby next to her on the mattress

And ride a shiny new pony

now when I go up to visit her grave
or her husband out in God country
I pass my fingers over that crack
and swing on the porch
mounting and unmounting her bits
of Appalachian sky

Go to sleepy little baby...

Appalachian Ocean

For my father

There’s something wonderful about the simplicity
of our hills and mountains,
Cumberland Lake lined with trees.
The summers here last well into September
making the evening air thick with sweat for months on end.
As a child I spent every weekend from Memorial to Labor Day
gliding over the water in our iron hull houseboat.
It crept along like a mud cat through the dark lake water
and I’d hang my feet over the edge
letting my toes drag ripples over the smooth surface
of early morning water.
The lake seemed like an ocean
and sometimes my parents and I were the only ones floating on it.
God dug far back into the mountains
and carved out a tiny Eden in our corner of the world,
our own Appalachian sea.

I Can’t Eat Asparagus

My father was Clark Kent
and I’d never seen him cry.
When the cancer came,
he turned a little pale,
lost his hair,
but things seemed to stay the same.
Then my mother took me to visit him at the treatment center.
The nurse took us to the room,
and I, impatient child, opened the door.
There he sat,
naked under a napkin gown,
his face the color of cooked asparagus.
I thought he was dead, but he proved me wrong.
Soon he sat up and threw up my vision of God.

Autumn

My father had cancer when I was nine,
but he didn’t die from it.
When my mother told me, I was melting on the near end of the sofa,
sinking down into the warm spot where my dog slept each night.
There was something inside of him,
an unholy mass in his thigh,
and whatever it was bleached my mother’s face.
She enveloped me like the mass,
the way I wanted to envelop her.
I wanted to rake up the leaves into piles for her to ruin,
jumping and laughing as I had when I was a child.