High Noon and Texas Beckons by Laurie A. Guerrero
Okay, so it’s neither high noon, nor is there snow here in Texas (in fact, it’s been absolutely gorgeous outside the last few days!), but I’m posting this poem (from the Texas Poetry Calendar 2008) anyway. I’m amused that Ryan arrived from NJ yesterday wearing a fleece (!!!). Here’s a link to the poet’s myspace page.
High Noon and Texas Beckons
By Laurie A. Guerrero
New England 2005
I collect the rocks from
beneath the snow. Their refusal
to freeze intrigues
and encourages me. Blue,
I question this northern sky
—breath coiled and scattered
by the lips of a god I’ve never known.
Frigid beads, in every brutal form,
slam my face and children.
This black noon, I remember
the fervor of the dripping sun:
childhood in bare feet,
watermelon on ice, tomatoes
off the vine; peach jelly melted
and swallowed by the thirsty white cotton
of my grandmother’s apron; the rousing
scent of brushfire in the barren roast
of my kind of season.
I carry her dry earth in my mouth.
