The Backwoods
I knew a girl more intimately than my life
before her knew wasted time. I
knew the nightingale and moon that perished
and were reborn in her voice; knew
the high school auditorium that crumbled
in her absence, its bleachers like
the belch of ogres too. I knew the Pabst
Blue Ribbon that would not make
an effort to know me, but next to her
the bonfire suddenly gave me the time
of day. I knew her name that split
my conscience like a Bible,
geraniums that brawled for
her affection and to prove the soil
wrong. I knew a sea of mediocrity,
main street in a harsh moonlight until
she arrived beneath a lime tree in
the lime light all the time. (I knew bad
mouths, I knew last meals; but I don’t
do maudlin.) I knew the kind of
lucky accident it’s killing me to think
about, but never her bed’s backwoods.
Jake Sheff
Tags:
Poetry