Southern Fried Weirdness

By Rheagan Alexander

This earth does not tilt down
to a marshy bowl; the rivers wear
no dressy braids or low oxbows.
Here, April light is pinched
from a dull sun –  one disc-shaped
mirror dropped into a bag of sky.

This is the harvest: roaring rapids,
a forest bound for cord-wood,
rare animals on disappearing tracks.
The meltwater wealth of Colorado calls,
and you strapped boys hear it,
sweating in your Midwest beds.

In your Kansas and your Iowa,
you feel the rip of each wind-driven
wildfire, the snap of city ankles.
Away from Mama's heavy table,
out of the prairies, and over the pass,
you bring checkbooks and babyfat.

By June, you are starved, with no
level ground left to lie down on,
and dirty liquor inside of your ribs.
In doorways, I wrap your wasp waists
in my August thighs, and take your hair off,
rinsing each twin blade cautiously.

Some years, near Christmas,
I drive out of this country, a cathedral
of graphite and gunmetal twisting behind.
But soon I pull to low gears again,
rolling uphill with my ears tight,
every axe blade ground to a dull hum.

I go back to that familiar world
of predators, claws, and every slow urge
that could whistle away at a girl.

Rheagan Alexander is a technical writer and data analyst living in New Orleans.  She has a BA in Anthropology and English Literature from Mississippi State University and an MA in Archaeology from Northern Arizona University.  She has worked as a cocktail waitress, barista, painter, poet, lumberjack, fire fighter, archaeologist, bureaucrat, and babysitter.  She has seen poems published in the Indigo Review, the Shield, and FuseLit.

Copyright © 2009, Rheagan Alexander