Black Flies

Art by Alli Devolve (2023 archive)

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Creekside, in winter, where we found

the frozen carcass;  the flames that ate to the end

of Colmer’s farm; a swinging silence due east

during drought season.  Pop hacks, coughs:  “What all

these got in common, girl?”  All three die,

by the same breath from which they come.

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Last November:  there was a new rock beneath the black gum,

and you sat, breathing heavy.  Then looked up, dumb-found.

You could feel locked warmth still emanating from its side,

uncovered the great elk.  Pitied him, encapsulated at his end,

for his very nature turned against him, half-eaten with all

the ferocity of his brother-wolves, snow-buried until his being ceased.

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Early April:  our preacher missing on Sunday, next town’s priest

breaking bread, breaking news we already knew.  Some-

how a single spark from a cornered crop burning (we’ve all

done it) caught Father C’s long grass, a coarse-haired donkey tail, found

itself the path to his rotting barn, his rotting porch.  We heard him at the end,

screaming acres away.  Like Daddy says, leave a man in the ashes where he lies.

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Mid-July:  crackling thrum of the yellow window unit, of blackflies

buzzing in the neighbor’s back room.  The body, sweat greased -

older than I, younger than you.  Sunk money in a dead-end

year, drowning in liquor with a dry well, the lingering hum

of shame only a farmer buckles under.  His Ma, stoically profound

graveside, musing how his rope was the last of it all.

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Forever: I watch you hold down the fragility of it, lookin’ tough and all,

running from corner stores.  “Why you gotta be like your old man, boy, why?”

‍Pop, this town is a sickness we don’t have to catch ‘cause it found us even when we hid,

you scream.  You don’t regret it in the least,

angling towards the root of your pain, beating the drum

with a hard fist just to come up for air at the wrong end.

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We who are born with the wrong end

of our father’s rage inherit the worst fate of all;

it is more than this skin can hold and so we rip it from

our flesh in order to survive,

killing the man to become the beast,

until I would not be recognized if I was found.