The Old Country
When they trepanned me I saw blue, green, yellow,
and violet over the gray hill, past the river of history beating
enormous and copper. Folk from the bloody town
fill their pockets with pennies. No one returns.
The old country is where they go, if you believe
the postcards, which say that even though the old country
is bloody just like our town, and the ash of revolution clouds
every fiery sunset, still you can hear a song
in each cold kernel of glass. A bloody song with a bloody chorus.
So why do the townspeople descend into the copper mine?
Why are their postcards so jubilant? I have pennies in a pickle jar.
They belonged to my grandmother. Her thoughts are rusting
through my eyes. The ochre in my lungs, the lacquer
on my bones. The people in my town and those who left
are humming. I taste iron and clay mud. I smell roses
and rotting wood.
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