by Jane Bowman

Red Joe Martin

 
What a name. Red Joe Martin. If it fit him well,
you might think he was a man of drama,
or a long drawn silence, relaxed in the back of a bar.
He might be tragedy played out
in acts of revolvers and expensive liquor;
secrets kept in books, disordered; or pleasures
gained of a mistress, observing a quiet tradition.
He might wield power with a ruthless hand,
all the while building treasure, deep and massive,
consumed by Midas' oblivious delight.
 
Try to reconcile the man with his name, but it is
big for him, a rich Texas name on an unassuming
Carolina man. He can roam inside it,
listening to echoes built of sloughed-off bits
of his imagination, and the relics of mama's intent.
He smiles, a little, thinking of the swagger
she must have held close in her mind,
all the while savoring thought of all the times
he has turned the voice of his banjo
loose into his circle of friends.
He can almost see the tracks of its travel
buzzing the wood of their guitars,
lighting little flames behind their eyes,
setting a fiery pace, as he cavorts ahead.
 
He knows a few of the ways a small man may run,
making others hurry to catch him.
Sometimes he feels the full growth of it;
music running so fast, so large from his hands
that his physical self could never meet its measure.
He is as big as he gets, as big as he dares,
and more often than not,
as big as he cares to be.

Drought

Earth is red and we heed
the rural heat, the white hot
summer and dearth of falling rain.
Feet are dusty bare for us, who see
grass shrink to its spiky demise.
Futile furrows scratch our breaking
nails of hunger, and our pardons beg
with faces upturned to the sky.

Though we dedicate prayers,
no salvation follows any call
toward the mocking blue. All scarcity
pleads with our hearts and souls
in the curve of its burning throat.
We starve for reprieve
beneath an obstinate sky, mourn
a sky that refuses to cry. 

Cousin

 
 The hills lie halved in spheres,
 a lover's hips under coverlet
 
 of morning frost, the air
 come to rest tissue light

 on leaf rustles, boots crush through
 to wait at roadside gravel ridge.
 
 Down valley the froth over iced slabs
 where they used to summer swim,
 
 the boy then roaming age, huddled
 fishhook wind just out of mama's range,
 
 under pretense to dream, inhale
 all the full spun universe weaving
 
 and the feel of his own belonging
 to wrap a thicker chamois shirt.
 
 Papa said no room for idleness, but
 devil's work never this pristine love,
 
 this masterpiece, where the green
 outlived even white blindness.
 
 A boy could drink of it, and feed
 and breathe of it, for free.