Three Poems by H. M. Cotton

Stranded

These rocking chairs have gullied along their wooden
grains. Sea-salt winds concave the softer rings,
and when we stand our legs pull cypress prints
like lithography. Beyond the back porch mesh,
the clouds have chugged their fill and spilled themselves
into the bay while lightning trips and ozones
the air. And still the water keeps on rising.
Twelve inches in as many hours. I track
its level on the nineteen-forties clap-board
siding while you twist godless prayers
on every bead I’ve strung, clasped, and restrung
for your blue chakra stone. Last night, you told
me of a universal star bowl that we
can’t see from here, but once you slipped
below the Southern Hemisphere and saw
a whole new set of stories written in the sky.
Octans tattoos the triangulation
of your elbow. I softly recollect
the last time we were here: when rotting dock
pilings seemed twice as high. Beached man-o-war
were land mines on our walk, and you tied jute
into a Turk’s head knot for me, your favorite
niece. And now your thick, moquettish hair
has disappeared, but we still spiral through
the years. Pulling out the kayaks, we dip
along the edges of this flood, our paddles like strips
of litmus, searching for constellations in the repository.

   

 

Old Country

The shadow line slides sideways, rolls its shoulder
over the brae, and kneads into the gloam
beyond the window frame of the old homestead.
The valleys on the back of my hands
deepen in the fading light. I distend
the tablecloth, imagine hollandaise
caught in the fabric weaves from brunch
after Uncle Mike’s benediction.

Plaster and lath walls dull the clawhammer record
of who begat whom. So I siphon
banjo riffs from leaky faucets: wipe the mealy
deposits off and pray the slide resonates,
and out stutters a tune I recall,
though by now the words have long dissolved.
I catalogue its notes, begin again.

 

 

Cold Bluing

July has marooned into September
and with it, the berries meant for pies.
Grandpa sits on the lip of his rosewood
rocker working out a scratch with a perma

paste touch-up. His Colt .45, a getup
just like The Duke’s, rests birdlike in his hands,
fingertips darkening with the trigger guard. They
purple like our hands did when we picked

Summer’s bucket of bluing rabbiteyes
and he whistled McLintock! That was the last
time I heard him ball up air. He can’t pucker anymore
so I don’t know where the whistle went. I think

he has it hidden behind his teeth where we all hear
peppermints clacking, cracking, but pretend we don’t.
Instead, we read history blooming in the sink and swear
our lives have crusted on the cast-iron skillet.

  

   

H. M. CottonH. M. Cotton is the managing editor of Birmingham Poetry Review, contributing editor for NELLE, and production manager for both journals. Her writing appears in places such as Greensboro ReviewstorySouth, and SmokeLong Quarterly. She teaches at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and spends as much time as possible with the Cahaba River

Header photo by Enrique, courtesy Pixabay.