1977

The long, hot drawl of the day
dusts the dirt road,
sweeps great, wide arcs around
ranch-hand shacks, tin tool sheds,
tall, deep barns,
the grand ranch house.

Harry keeps it locked
so the mildew seeps into the carpet:
mint green, short shag,
matches lighter curtains, darker walls
where horses gallop in hard oil ridges
filmed with age and forgetfulness.
Light filters through in dreamy, pale shades,
the aquatic mansion sits empty,
clapped shut against intrusion.

Ol’ Harry
has barnacle toes and Spam breath.
He locks most everything away
so his ungrateful, drunken daughters
will never take what’s his.
His wife sits wrapped in an electric blanket
in the corner of the Wichita Falls mansion.
A cool, musty house,
oily, darkened rolls of money.

At the ranch
the finest shack faces the road,
its picture window is found in back.
Better than paintings-never-changing,
first yellow-white wheat,
then green field, churned soil, good soil.
The weather decides the view.

In this house,
Grandma walks around sunbeams
that warm the flat, green carpet,
moves in shadows, through doorways,
a noiseless figure in a white housecoat
trimmed with purple flowers.
Her green eyes set just aside
from where you’re standing,
her voice shakes in stuttered whispers
around the corners of your ears.
It will be four more years
of anxious waiting
before the doctors prescribe lithium.

Some shacks down
a crusted, reddish cinderblock house
sits nearly hidden behind wild flowers
and tall grass.
Mother slops Chef Boyardee into a bowl,
sighs for a telephone.
She sulks, sultry
in her warm brown leather boots,
high cut jeans-skirt, gold bangle earrings
already chipping.
She’s waiting for Joe
to cross the cattle-guard
and whisk her into town
for knee-slappin’ music and alcoholic revelry.
The wind cuts through the open windows,
smoothes back her long, dark hair,
dries the salty sweat high on her forehead.

Rattlesnakes
move silken lines
through the dirt road
that winds around
the mansion, Grandpa’s house,
Mother’s breeze-softened shanty
older than Ol’ Harry.
They slink quiet trails
close to warm-blooded,
American souls,
their frigid venom dripping
as they slide, coil, twist;
they’ve only bitten mice.
They are waiting.

Grandpa keeps their tails,
rattles them for his grandchildren’s delight,
leaves the shovel-beheaded, twisting whips
to turn to dust in the blunt
Texas sun.