And with help we loaded the pickup
with all the other things that no longer functioned.

Washing machine that shook itself to death.
Ancient computer, dirty face like city ice.
One stained mattress, upon which no children
were conceived. And so forth. Drove

somewhere. Nothing grew there but hills
someone had burned with cigarettes.

Thorns survived. And kudzu. There was a ditch
where an old Chevrolet dammed the runoff
and buried itself in red mud. There we did
our unloading. Appliances rolled downhill

like snake eyes. Newspaper bundles and slick
magazines fell like bad cards. Sliding down,
the mattress ripped some kudzu cover away,
exposed layers of garbage. Households like ours.

A daughter’s bicycle with glossy mylar streamers
looked to have been almost new, but vines
threaded its spokes and frame,
stitched it to the earth like Frida Kahlo.

We have returned our portion.

 

—
Barbara Young hasn’t been writing much this year. East Nashville got too popular, so she and Jim packed up the cats and moved out to White Bluff. A grocery, two hardware stores, and a bakery that only makes doughnuts. Change is interesting. Because writing prompts can be easier than poems, Barbara sometimes becomes “Miz Quickly.”

Kristin-who-cuts-my-hair describes her sweet
honeymoon in the Bahamas. She *Snip*

says it was a telephone offer. Who
in their right mind would? But they did.

In the mirror, behind blue Barbicide,
she shapes thin sheets of hair as she talks.

But she’s only a blur—her island grows,
luxurious, through my reflection. Later, home,

and the Weather shows a swirling egg yolk,
red as a dragon’s eye, aimed at the Bahamas.

Someone told me once: Don’t go to Paris,
it’s not there. And if you loved the book,

don’t see the movie, ever. Untroubled by storms,
Kristin’s green lizards smile on from pink walls.

 

—
Barbara Young hasn’t been writing much this year. East Nashville got too popular, so she and Jim packed up the cats and moved out to White Bluff. A grocery, two hardware stores, and a bakery that only makes doughnuts. Change is interesting. Because writing prompts can be easier than poems, Barbara sometimes becomes “Miz Quickly.”

in my eye. In the branches mirror-
silvered by an inch of ice, you
were a movement and a frigid little song,
a frozen hinge opening.

I never thought before
to wonder do avians have artifacts
of vision, too. Eye wall art
with no provenance as if graffito
ninjas swim the humors, spray can
stencil hawks primed
to vex the optic nerves.

How small those birds would be.

 

—
Barbara Young is a native of Nashville, Tennessee. She likes bluegrass, blues, jam cake, chess pie, cats, and small but roomy cars; and she wishes she’d paid more attention.