This poem first appeared here in The Aroostook Review.
Photograph in a Bar, Washington, D.C.
The guy in the foreground is Quint
my friend tells me
pointing to and holding
a photograph at arm’s length.
Behind Quint, on the table
two Bud Light bottles sweat
in sticky puddles, framing
a fluorescent margarita.
In Quint’s hand: a cell phone.
There’s a purse on the table
no girl to claim it
just an empty barstool
and silhouettes
of nameless faces
filling dark spaces.
This poem originally appeared in The Echo.
Service in St. Paul’s
—London, 2003
Acrophobia turned
upside down:
fear floating away,
gravity deciding
to suddenly
give up.
There’s a dome
overhead, a glowing
Jesus over the altar,
and too much space
to pray
comfortably.
Imagination
among the scaffolding,
eye to eye with Joseph,
now falling facing up:
heaven does
not seem so high.
A box of cereal, stale, ants running
Up the side, two brown bananas that
He says cleanse the pores
(If rubbed thoroughly),
An unwrapped chocolate bar
And a plethora of cans, unopened:
In a locked pantry, Little Maddy sits
Plucking the stems
Off Granny-Smiths. Just ten more
Minutes. Maddy, weary, wondering
Just when daddy would come home.
Time: the pantry is unlocked
And out comes light
And apples and, lastly, Maddy.
Daddy reaches
For the two rotting bananas,
Notes can upon unopened can,
Unwraps the chocolate bar,
Smears chocolate on his fingers,
Stops, thinks how unlikely it is
For apples to lose their stems.
The following poem first appeared here in Arator.
Hunting
The deer, leaned over, frightens
at the sound of the crack,
the broken stick beneath his hoofs
or the hunter’s feet.
Wagging his tongue in the moonlight,
shaking his fist at the sky,
the hunter loses choice and chance.
A moment later
it would have been gunfire:
the sound
either unreal or untrue
that cannot be heard
except by the living.
A crisp cool tug of air,
like the long drag of a cigarette,
wisps across the earth,
slaps him in his face,
reminds him
of the coming cancer.
He looks through the sights, down the barrel,
and fires at the nothing that’s there
to kill the something that is,
the sum of his existence,
and ours:
hope and truth.
Amy Susan Wilson is a writer living in Shawnee, Oklahoma. She holds an M.F.A. from Columbia University and her work has appeared in the Southern Literary Review, Southern Women’s Review, Red River Review, and other journals.
The Glass Eye
Acting like you come
to pet my dog Bullet
No Sir Little Missy
you come to lookit
the quarter-sized hole
in my head
where my glass eye lives.
‘Jack in the Box Joe’
I call him.
Pops just like Jack
out of his tin box,
or dentures
From my mouth.
Hold out your hand
I’ll drop him to your palm
go on
he won’t bite.
Girl, slow your jabbering down.
Did Jack in the Box Joe
ever fall out my head
when he wasn’t supposed to?
Three springs back
Tornado Juanita
drove trucks, trailers
Big Lots!
ten counties over;
that wind a noodler’s arm
yanking Joe out my socket,
Joe a catfish
bunkered deep the nest
of my skull.
Campground Twelve,
Lake Shawnee,
Jack in the Box Joe plunked
Right smack that
memory foam posture pedic queen
lodged the top
an old oak.
Last June
International Youth Rodeo Finals,
lost my eyeball
Expo building.
Youth barrel racing
starting up–
old Joe roll behind a saddle stall,
a miracle that loudspeaker,
Rodeo fans
we got us one navy purse
an eyeball turned in
Anyone missing an eye
Or lady’s purse
Go left of Roy’s Funnel Cakes
Right of Connie’s Chicken Gizzard Wagon;
Again, anyone lost an eyeball
Assert to Rodeo lost and found.
Jack in the Box Joe
plopped back in
that empty space
in my head
Joe all grateful,
sputters a little
Thanks Man,
Joe going hippie
on me
sometimes.
Do I have to clean him
since he’s made of glass?
Windex, a paper towel
spit-shines Joe
clear as a prize blue marble
or show Corvette.
How did I get the nickname
“Eyeball-Satellite?”
Joe and me
we spot rain
good as a NASA satellite.
Rain, sleet twenty counties away,
the glass eye twitches.
If Jack in the Box Joe
knew stocks like he knows rain
I’d be rich
as Wal-Mart clan,
Bentonville area.
Did you know Alice Walton
got herself a DUI
Christmas 2012?
Forth Worth ranch,
I-35.
Miss Alice
coulda splatted
like a water bug,
liquor a respecter
of no one.
Watch Little Miss Amy Susan;
My eye’s gonna twitch.
Rain our way come this hour.
Best to scoot on home
eat your Mama’s
corndog, okra supper.
Oh foo and poo
fiddle stickers to boot,
you think I could make this up?
Joe and me
got to feed Bullet his Purina
I mix with a little Swanson’s
scoot home girl–
beat the rain,
don’t forget
to count your blessings
for all you have.
Amy Susan Wilson is a writer living in Shawnee, Oklahoma. She holds an M.F.A. from Columbia University and her work has appeared in the Southern Literary Review, Southern Women’s Review, Red River Review, and other journals.
Bottle Tree
My Nanna’s backyard elm
outfitted with blue, red
green glass bottles
tied with chicken wire the width
of a hen’s beak
to each branch.
Scarin’ crows away,
Gram’s explained.
Wind chimes hung like gaudy ear bobs
from lobes of lower branches:
a lady bug with silver spoons,
that copper kettle adorned with
aqua beads, a faded red tin cup,
the kind hobos carry
while riding the rail.
Each sunset
those Blue Nun bottles
soft purple
like a mood ring
or Goddess moon from Jupiter.
Mama back at Griffin,
I’d sigh,
run my palm
down the spine
of charcoal bark.
I never told Nanna,
kids at school
just Ruby-Lucille
me winning
a big red Escalade
Firelake Casino
someday I would—
Mama and me
we’d chomp green M&Ms
all the way to California,
big blue ice chest
the kind with wheels
loaded with biscuits
Pepsi, Paydays
strawberry ice cream bars galore.
Grams calls Griffin
A nerve hospital
A mini-vacation from life.
Church ladies whisk
meatloaf
salisbury steak
Sunday afternoons,
Grams too old to handle a child
This stage of life
All by herself.
Always,
Mrs. Harlan Dodge Simpson
presses a green bean casserole,
Old Testament
coloring book
to my palms—
lambs, cows
slaughtered on an altar,
carnation red crayon
for blood
twelve pack Crayola.
Ruby Lucille always waits,
backyard,
those bottles
clink like diamond bracelets
TV stars load their arms with.
“Well Lady Bug,
A fine plan
You and your Mama,
Heading to L.A.
Someday,”
Ruby Lucille whispers
in her bottle tree language,
Ruby Lucille
never laughing
never letting on.
Creative Destruction
And in their aftermath, the ground is black,
The brush is gone, the trees, alive, are charred—
Destruction’s all that anyone can track—
They’re sure destruction like this should be barred.
But with the rains, the black gives hints of green,
And with the newfound light upon the ground,
New life can spring up and at last be seen,
And even deer have room enough to bound.
The space between the trees is filled with pink
And scarlet, tall fringed orchids share the field
With cardinal flowers taller still. Both link
A newborn network, building a new yield.
And soon the trees are leafing out and shade
The space beneath—a new environment
Is born, where bluets bloom, ferns fill the glade,
Each using what the last sun-flowers lent.
And changes will continue, changes will
Explore the possibilities that grow,
And over time each space will find its fill
Of every difference we could ever know.
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