Poetry

Rachel Stowe: Writing Portfolio

Foothills

I am misplaced Appalachia,

crooked-legbookcases,

grass-choked cricks,

and grandfather dying,

heart fit to burst,

one salt grain

at a time.

From dusty carpets

and new-smelling crayons,

towns abandoned and rotten

pine-splintered palms.

Deep in my bones

lies root cellar coolness

and the burning dust taste

of the furnace in winter.

In my heart is the stillness

of church-quiet in summer,

feet dirty-bare and burnt candle ends.

I am half-sharpened pencils and

state lines and hope.

Watermelon birthmark and stiff upper lip.

And my grandmother once told me

these things make you stronger,

but I still don’t know

if she meant memories

or years.

Luminary

When I was in love with you

I was lit like Times Square.

If you brushed against me

the place glowed

for days,

making me look like a tramp

outside a cheap bar,

the dirty light

eaten by her polyester dress.

I wore your words around my wrist

like a cut-rate rosary bracelet,

all pale blue plastic

and tacky nylon cord.

I would lay in bed and wonder

if lightning bug are embarrassed

by how their butts light up

when they’re looking for a mate

...and if it’s at all like

how I’m embarrassed

that you can flick my smile

on and off

like a light switch.

Planes

Your clothing falls from your shoulders,

too big, standing away

from your body, stiffened by hanging

too long in a closet,

but I don't see

the planes of cloth

encasing your torso

but the hollows beneath,

the shadow tucked in your collar,

the curve of your spine, your ribs

expanding inside the soft coolness

like when we were young,

and would make tents in the lilacs

with crisp, old sheets

and lie on the grass

together, like a secret

world all our own.

But now you're encased, so far

away, inside cotton broadcloth--

a door I can't open, a fence

I could not jump--

and you feel like a wall

I've pressed myself against.

Nantahala Dam

Papa said we had to go

pack the bags, button our coats

and board a train

snaking through the Chattahoochee,

dark pines slumping

like old men on the ridge.

My father, earth-shaker, mind-changer

plunked us in a cabin

and went to the water,

delved in the mud, the river basin

and Mama rung our clothes

and her hands

dry over the washbasin.

Nantahala, sticky on my tongue,

stoic faces above re-opened graves

and the future surging forward

with hydroelectric power.

Mama says there's two kinds of dams--

the kind Papa builds,

all sweat and cement,

and the kind he says

when the money's run out

and the bottle's dry.

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