vol. 1, 2007
Brian Dickson
In the big rancher, they won’t see me
slip down the bank: Oliver and Betty Sue,
Buford and Evelyn, Richard and my mother—
and I, another man’s child. The men switch
from sweet tea to Falstaff; the women
wear beehives and ankle bracelets, smash
cigarettes in their plates of cold eggs.
Face down in the long summer,
in the mesh hammock near a pond
that sucks the neck of land, I befriend
spongy clover, skim the clouded bottom.
More terrapin than girl, no human teeth
or ears, cool mud my true home,
guarded rushes.
My mother dyes her hair platinum,
then jet, to be Richard’s showy conch,
his blackest obsidian shore. Their bodies
passing in the hallway spark and blind
like noon on water.
Inside my bony shell, dead quiet, only
the current of my hand ruffles grass
for the odd four leaves, night’s scratch
and wail still pent up and burning.
Author’s Bio:
Brian balances his time between four realms of education with tutoring, farming kindergarteners, teaching composition in the cyberworld, and teaching composition at the Community College of Denver. He enjoys spending time riding his bike to work and around Denver cultivating an awareness of things around him. Some publications include Copper-Nickel, Matter, Goodfoot, The Blue Mesa Review, and others.