Poem from “Seawrack”
Scrubbing garlic at sunset,
in a bucket of mud-red water,
fat bulbs shedding earth.
Take to the road, night traveller,
maybe never to come back.
*
Once I knew a song, and how it told the story,
Little Mouse and Felicity setting out
all barefoot through the mud-mush,
around them holy universe a-twirling,
buddy on the old railroad beating time;
they dandled Eve’s sweet apples,
mud-red to the knee as they sang hymns
about the attainable tough-ass farms
with mortgage documents long as bibles.
I’ll feed you spicy buds with sticky fingers—
the Little Mouse lined it out
that fox-tailed whistle tune in quavers.
Felicity stood waving on the tracks,
baked seven moon-pies for buddy on the railroad,
and mud was ever with them.
Once I knew a song, and how it told the story,
Little Mouse and Felicity setting out
and coming home with their new hymns
that run downhill like water.
audio version
