Finessing Old Poems

An ode to a handful of childhood years spent in Kansas. Thank you to Stellasue for encouragement on the poetry front again ....


Being in Kansas

in the rock-strewn sharpness of that place made wild

and sometimes molded from graphite

called the heart
primary colors on a clothesline are t-shirts
peeled from tired bodies and left to hang
into the shape of solitary hours
of being forgotten outside

and near the clothesline in a yard
over ground too flat

is a world whispered kansas!
from the lips of a girl who thinks

her skin in the sun smells

like pancake batter as she tries
in the summer heat to fill
the parched-open earth with water

to fill the cracks that are to her

open mouths—thirsty thick-tongued

grimaces—striking at her ankles

stinging and harsh the way

they will slap on the afternoon she runs

fast for the house dropping the jug

as the fist of her heart beats

a warning into her ribs at the sight of yellow

sleeves thrashing from the almost-invisible

line tangled and angry in the sudden wind

so dry and cutting those days she will remember
when the wind fiery became moments
of tornadoed sirens and hiding alone hunkered
the body as low as possible in bathtubs waiting
down while cold fingers blossomed sweat petals
and ears knew the clackity rumble of coming trains

so strange and far away the green light of those summers made

of a thundery heaviness she will remember as

she turns one morning for his body

naked and able to laugh now as life unexpected

weaves the contours of a rainy dawn

and sharp, rough stone makes way to become

a deluge cool and indigo

             a downpour rushing wet

a place where open mouths are quenched

and parched tongues have no say

                                              

                                             --  2003/11