Poetry

Watauga County, North Carolina

Everything comes first from the mind of God, which is the hand of God,
the thinking hand.
Did you want the destruction to take place before the beauty, or after.

My wife secretly took
a bunch of cuttings this fall
while I stood watch: two leaves

My father says I don’t know how you can live
where you can’t see the stars, and I tell him
they’re as far away from you as they are
from me, which is true. But he’s calling me

Your name, a fold creased
into my tongue—what followed,
naturally, I love you.

The bean is the perfect lesson, capsule of seed coat
enshrouding cotyledon, the embryonic epicotyl leaves,
the radicle ready for reaching.

Asphalt, bituminous, concrete, cement—
the whole place is case-hardened, carapaced.
The air shimmers with heat; tree roots can’t breathe. . .