Kristallnacht, Again
In Indiana, empty-headed cornstalks wave
at the interstate. Peeling wooden crosses
lurk among the goldenrod, forgotten.
Deployed decades ago with evangelical zeal,
they decorated Appalachian highways when
my friend Daniel still lived in West Virginia.
They unleashed his crystal nightmares of Vienna.
He knocked at our screen door, asked,
If they come again, will you hide me?
July Evening, West Virginia
I gather stunted apples
from the garden
peel them, carve out
their bruised flesh
put them to simmer
with cinnamon
On the radio
a woman’s voice
recollects the death
of a famous poet
how his friends
sat on the floor for hours
attending the old Buddhist
as he slowly let go
I don’t have time to meditate
A child needs me
I stir the pan
certain he will love
whatever I find good
The poet at last surrendered
left his queer poems
to the living
for queer children
to someday find
and gain strength
from the joy of their holiness
We eat and go outside
watch fireflies blink
as the darkness grows
Peggy Turnbull is a poet and former academic librarian who has worked in public colleges and universities in Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Read her recent poems in Postcard Poems and Prose, Mad Swirl, Nature Writing, and Three Line Poetry. She is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and blogs at peggyturnbull.blogspot.com.
Photo credit: Ashley Harrigan via a Creative Common license.
Wonderfully sparse yet pin-point accurate and deeply feeling poems. I was also gratified to see at your blog that we’ve published in many of the same journals, and was envious to see I’ve been rejected by many others you’ve listed. D. R. James