Beau
After Donald Britton’s “Italy”
Here in Texas all the buildings are the color
Of dry mud and the skies are “pastoral”
And the creekbeds dry and winding
And everybody is always stopping by
To say “How’s it going?” and then “Well—”
We think a lot about nature, chiefly
The nature of lawns and the what-is-that-thing-
Moving-in-the-brush and the killing of it all.
There is much to hunt down. And after, eat.
One fells the deer so as not to fall behind.
I have just awakened to the fact that I am not in love
And will not be for some time, and instead will
Trudge onwards past the state lines and find there
My prey, outside our bounds. Later I will run
A long, patient track no less than five times around
And walk home dizzy, then find a straight line
In the planks of my floor, place my hands
A shoulder’s width apart, and stay that way
Until my stomach shakes, this time with exertion
And no shortage of weakness. It’s the small things
That keep me wanting. Tomorrow it will be Saturday
And I will romp around in a park with a butterfly net.
I feel more Texan with every crawling thing I catch.
I saw a clutch of larkspur on my walk home yesterday
With insects flitting through it: I wanted dead each one.
How beautiful each pinned swallowtail is,
And how sad to think so. I am just on the cusp of publishing a book,
Joining the army, moving away. The unrelenting call of reality, of
Time spent unguarded, gets increasingly quieter
As the shadows lengthen. Summer is the only place
We get to come, and stay. I remember asking my mother
Why it was that my sister and great uncle shared a name,
Bo and Beau, while we searched his field for arrowheads.
Eight, I knew that the fine, red soil
Could hardly be conceived to hold them still,
Being turned and turned as it was each harvest.
But the way Beau examined each row, boots unsinking
Even as our smaller feet found no purchase
And pressed deep prints into the flint-free dirt, convinced me
To hold my tongue. A routine vigil, this inspection, a hopeful
And unending devotion to roots: his, to the land, and the land’s,
To its owners, in whose ranks he did not place himself.
At least that’s the kinder version. Some might say
He wanted to show off for his city-slicker relatives.
Another could claim he just walked with his eyes to the ground.
Loss Ghazal
Rich moon in black sky, swathed in silken sheets of loss;
clouds choke the birdless treetops, quiet now with loss.
Remember the very first time, small and delicate,
swiftly pumping blood healed the softened blows of loss.
Eulogies we ate like supper at dusky close of day.
Dirges heard then, known only now by ripened loss:
Age, that selfish creature, dragging me from loss.
Missing tooth, empty plot, pale sky, and this loss.
Our red oak knows losing like my father knows it.
Its roots lie prostrate, rotting in damp and sleeping loss.
To walk outside, stately tree listing slightly,
Sickly branches dropping to the grass, and see how you’ve lost.
Today, Grandfather’s wrinkled hands, like impending loss,
push pock-marked dominoes towards me, signaling loss.
Respiration
The action of breathing.
For the first time in what must have been months,
I took a deep breath without tasting your perfume.
The shift was palpable, like a sharp headache
or the first moment of clarity on waking.
I stepped outside that day and marveled at
My working body, that might carry me anywhere
beyond your room, could walk and think and speak
and escape, for now, what you had not.
As you sank deeper into that slowly closing jaw,
that same light blue and bright, bright white,
I felt you clutching the rope of youth
you had bound to me. That time I visited,
before they told you I was there, I saw you through glass
cradling your head in your hands, trying to catch
the falling sky with ten spread fingers. I remembered then--
You sprayed fragrances all around your room,
wheels sticking on tacky floors, trying to mask the scent
of your own sickness or at least the bitter reality of bleach.
Those last few days, when you could no longer propel yourself,
eat, or keep your own eyes open, I stayed and sat,
my closed hand by your facedown palm, drinking in the pure air
and your open face. I noticed again the scar on your brow bone
from your fall, the respirator over your nose,
The way a heart breathes in and out.
Recession
The act of receding, motion away from an observer.
Passing through deep country
To visit the river, my mother discovered
Her great-grandmother’s grave,
Neighbored by Shadixes down the century
And surrounded by yellowing grass.
We stood back from it
Like the pit wasn’t filled, casket open,
white lilies in one crumbling hand.
She said, ‘I never met her,’
And picked up the husk
Of a once-beautiful bouquet,
Brown stems and crisp petals,
A few dark droplets left like bruises
On the shimmering grass.
About the Author:
Josie Bednar is a young writer based in Texas. Her work has been published in the Blue Marble Review, Battering Ram Literary Journal, and Teen Ink Magazine. When not writing, she enjoys exercising and baking treats.
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