By B.J. Wilson
And that face / reflected in the glass / with fields sliding through— / the face that is / how the mind has come to think / about itself. —Wayne Miller
[Rain]
A line of bulldozers
outside the beaded window
squats slantwise in the
rain, trees upturned to disc
roots for burning.
●
If I forget to take my meds, I don’t sleep; if I’ve forgotten they’ve been taken, and take them twice, it rains.
[Feathers]
I didn’t even notice its descent: a hawk, hovering before me on the cliffside, overcast with whispered commands, as if I were the one hooded, my ankles taut in the jesses.
●
After waking, I found a butcher knife on my nightstand because I’d dreamt that I needed it to protect me, so now I keep my knives spread like a fan of tailfeathers in the freezer, hoping a cold handle mightwake me.
●
A golden eagle drifts between bare trees, branches against the white sky like scars.
[Roots]
My father’s lunch hour,
he layers his sandwich
with horseradish, so I do mine.
He’s mad at me for making
him leave the office again:
I nut-punched a referee
with a straight shot, that’s
how small I am. I’d kicked
a kid, too, before my lifting
from the soccer field
into my mother’s arms,
crying in her lap beside the
bleachers in the rain, all
the other parents, both teams,
gone quiet on the sideline.
●
Night terrors still: I’ll find myself twisting a doorknob, trying to escape the bedroom, as I wake up.
[Vines]
of blood between my mother’s fingers weave down her wrist, her hand over an eyelid as she speeds back to the hospital still in her work scrubs.
I pack a duffle bag this time, but I never make it past the backyard’s bushes, or my father’s belt: my hands cupped with an ass cheek each for the buckled sting.
●
Mom stays with friends some nights,
and even though it’s just down the street,
only a few primmed lawns
between us, to me she’s much farther away.
●
When the child psychologist has me handwrite, I always erase, as if I could type a strikethrough over pretending to apologize to the neighbors, when instead I rope their little girl’s hair around my fist and drag her before hopping their perfect, white picket fence.
[Knives]
I chased away a babysitter
with one. Wasn’t it a
meat-cleaver once?
●
When I was unable to work
for a year, a therapist
had to help me plan my days
on notecards. Had to say
things like, Let’s lay off
looking for God, right now, and
Maybe you’re bisexual, and
It’s good you have writing
for a hobby.
●
[Snakes]
The meds meant
to sedate me
couldn’t without
waking me
with contortions
at first, so I thought
it might’ve
been my bed and
not my body.
[Roots]
Bulldozers have worked the wet mud
for more strip malls:
one shade-tree left in the rubble,
stacks of roots smoking
in light rain.
●
I too gather roots,
clearing more than a mile
once backhoes
leveled the scrub,
for five twenty-five an hour:
bare chest covered
in dust, sinews snapping
back, yellow sweat
burning my eyes.
I miss whole acres:
like secrets
exposed at the center
of the rubble.
[Rain]
From outside the window, I peer through beads of rain into the restaurant where my father and I bite into our sandwiches. Watch as his thoughts drift back from the wreckage outside to me, before he nudges his paper ketchup cup toward my fries.
●
Mom’s things
back at the foot
of our stairs.
B.J. Wilson is the author of two poetry collections, Naming the Trees (The Main Street Rag, 2021) and Tuckasee (Finishing Line Press, 2020). His work has appeared in The Rappahonnock Review, The Blue Mountain Review, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere. He holds a writing fellowship from The Hambidge Center, an MFA from the Bluegrass Writers Studio, and a Pushcart Prize nomination for his poetry. B.J. is also a songwriter and vocalist and recordings of his readings were selected by Transom for New Public Radio. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky, his hometown.