Fishing for Darkness on the Buffalo

I hold to this overturned boat
like too much sugar in coffee

The clatter of water on stone
is a song in a dream about firewood
hiding a clutch of a black widow eggs
I keep secrets
about rope in the dark
and a traveler who sleeps in my barn

Up here in Newton county
Death has a brother
who watches the roads
and carries a hawksbill knife
for gutting his catch

My uncle sits at the edge of the river
his head in his hands and a snoot full of liquor
while the law drags the bottom with hooks
The preacher covets my wife

If I survive this flood
I’ll borrow a mule and ride into Jasper
for coffee and salt

If you ask me though
I never knew an honest grave-digger
with a clean collar and music for rent.

**

Things My Lost Love Could Do

I never knew why
she wore black shoes
when the preacher
came sniffing around
to peck shit with the chickens
No one else in the county
could speak over fish bones
without bringing bad luck

Three river boys hid under her skirts
When they tugged their nets
across the gunnels of her thighs
I heard a bull fiddle play
soft as honey in whisky

I never knew how she found that dog
lost in the woods
or stuck old wine bottles
on the top limbs of the pin-oak

She taught orphan girls to spin wool
thinking on sassafras and goat’s milk
She could fill up a bucket
gigging frogs in the well

Before we could marry
hornets got under my porch
weevils got to my flour

I never dreamed she would shoot herself
with my rusty old pistol.

**

Ozark Revival

I saw her through the trees
Coming up the trail from Devil’s Den
A girl beginning to bud
Mouth as soft as queen Anne’s lace
Basalt eyes and a glare
That would freeze new growth

She said there were frogs
In her cistern and told me to squeeze ‘em
She needed a ride
Into Winslow to hock all her fiddles
Since nobody told Daddy
It was a bad idea to lie down at the sawmill
When he couldn’t hold up his end of the liquor
Her mama had once
Been a dancer in France
A knife-mouthed woman
Left grit in every bowl of soup
Then died cross-wise on her old rope bed
The snake-church ladies
Came out of the holler after dark
To make a funeral
They bathed her in well-water
And put a drawer full of clay spoons
Under her head
Wrapped her feet in turnip greens
Put mirror in an abalone frame on her breast
Nailed her up in the corn crib then left
On their mules for Madison county

I’ll tell you one more time
Aint no one to bite
In a house without bluegills or ugly women
To scale them

On her bed we drank liquor
From a red clay jar
Ate watermelon spitting our seeds in a corner
Just beyond the reach of John-law
She named off disciples one by one
Taking twelve shining razors
From a box by the bed
She asked me to cut off her garters
Bloody skinks ran through a crack in the floor
We swore each other to secrecy and promised
To sleep on it

I dreamed up a mess of duck eggs for two
A fox woke me up licking my fingers
He sat by the bed in a pinstriped suit and played
“Where Did You Sleep Last Night”
On a turtle-shell banjo
He asked if I knew Leadbelly
Or why little chickens suffered
The breath of three mice smelled
Like black leaves
From the bottom of a slough
Light rain fell nine minutes
Corn meal with seven weevils dusted the sills
No sparrows would feed in the dark

Come daylight I washed in a pan on the porch
Her bulldog broke loose from his chain
And nailed all my coins to the railing
He grinned and showed me his teeth but
Begged me for mercy
As I walked out of the yard

Down along Locust creek
I came on a preacher
Wading knee-deep and naked
He smelled like sweat in
A whorehouse closet
Crickets crawled in his hair
He had two crippled boys down in the creek
With a coil of bob-wire
The boys grinned
Eyes bright with tears
For the lost
They sang out through blue lips

…What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh! precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Water seeped into my shoes
There was sand in my mouth
I had on a white gown and red lipstick
Someone pulled me under the water
It was muddy and I couldn’t find Jesus.