And What I Offered Him, He Took
All the hollows have gone
hopelessly green with springtime.
Small storms bluster through in the evenings,
wild bursts of rain and wind and thunder
making the hogs squeal and shift, uneasy
in their pens as I sneak from the house,
through the sodden pasture to get to the river
where I wait for him while the sun sinks down, down
into the cupped hands of the black hills.
I can smell him coming, even before
he crosses the river, like a doe can smell
a buck in rut from miles away and trembles
with the knowledge of that hard hunger
closing in, so fascinating and terrifying all at once.
Frogs startle and leap into the water,
kick up mud dark as Johnse’s eyes
when he, lost inside the squall of his own heavy desire,
pulls me to him under that hazy orange moon
and tugs aside the rough mess
of my dress to get to what’s ripe, underneath
and ready to be plucked from the vine
with the trees towering over us
like the steeple of an old church
the blackbirds rustling
in the branches above,
huddled together,
their little hearts
hammering away at the night.
(2014)
This poem is an excerpt from a larger collection of poems I am currently working on about the Hatfield & McCoy feud. "Johnse" refers to Johnse Hatfield. The narrator of the poem is Roseanna McCoy.
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