#47

47.

That field
in the middle
of the trailer-park.
The grass laced around my ankles
when I ran; like hair, I imagined.
The hair of an enormous,
dirt-woman-creature-goddess.

In the middle of the field
was a hump of earth,
a wave of soil and rocks.
You could hide from view
behind it,
myself and the others;
the girl with food-stained clothes,
the noisy boy
who pinched us too hard
and laughed.
That small hill saw
my first draw from
a cigarette, when I finally
learned to french braid, how much
I cried over being so poor.

There was always too much dust there.
Hostility, intolerance, beer cans
rattling in the wind like tumbleweeds.

But there was also this:

The blackest night sky.
Guided by memory out of bed
and into the night.
To stand in the middle of nothing,
privileged to see every star.


*from my poetry journal