Won’t Burn Right

you will always be wrong about us
and I know a poem isn’t going to change that

​

from the porch, a long view of caged tomatoes
corn, okra, beans capped by the rolling ridge

at night fireflies lightening bugs descend
pouring, blinking white from the core of a mountain

this farm was given its sweet name by a boy
who assaults me over and over again—and is still beloved

another one, a year or so younger, aims an arrow at my throat
bowstring taut and smile sharp as a barb

we all run untethered through the briars and hills
catching living things and mostly letting them go

scooping up the dead and keeping them all
elevating them above our muck—in milk crates we’ve lashed to tree limbs

I don’t think I know the categories of pain
bloody lips and shins, bruises, twisted ankles, humiliation

for birthdays the uncles pass a ball cap
and it fills with dollars—a tithe to our unshakable familial love

I scratch at twigs to find green underneath
then I’m told they won’t burn right, not yet

my fists clench around wads of cornsilk
or unfurl and sink into the slick, algal mat of a brook

I dig up cattails, I am threatened at gunpoint
I eat pickles, I cower, I bestow names upon the dirt-red newborn calves

my hardened toes dig into the gravel drive
even as they point me away