Dust Bowl

Dust Bowl

(in progress)

Coiled on the mat with an arrow fixed
At the epicenter, my body howls.
I am not that golden child whose cough stirred
Nations. Not here. Not in this pink wound-moon,
Lungs hung halfway up like a wedding tent,
Tense at the pole over who’ll fail to show.
No, my silk is full of bullet shells.

Coiled on the target I’m two yellow lines.
I am a do-not-enter sign, periphed,
I am an unfilled mine. There was no kill
And yet the tangled tape smothers its tracks.
We are a heavy guilted generation;
I sicken my own creation.

Coiled around your song the gramophone
Points its needle prick into my womb-tomb.
There, a blue room. There, a dust bowl ova
Minds her injured bed. In her the music
Swells like resurrected cells. In her, the dancing
Ghost of william junior revels and rebels.

Coiled against a pile of paper ash,
I tape the son-song to my broken breast.
I enter heartily this grave-thief’s mantle,
Fondling his grass a little.
Where’s the boy? a lady goes repeating:
Handcuffed to a shipwreck and retreating,

His mother’s elegy is soon to follow;
Come hear a cello sing because it’s hollow.



[copyright Taylor Roberts, 2008]