by Renee Emerson
The door to the porch hangs open in this weather, inviting
our children and resident carpenter bees to drift lazily in
and out. A trail of cut crabgrass chicken-scratched across
the floor from bare feet running to the sink—because they need
water for their own complicated structures. Today, digging
for worms, pulled writhing from the dirt. They chase
each other with them, threaten to add a slimy tress
to sister’s hair, toothless Medusa.
At last, we have all been told to stay home. Everyone
begins to trust garden dirt on their hands, to fear another’s
touch, another’s breath. I can tell you, they trust too much.
In our house in Arkansas, Black Widow spiders webbed
the corners of each window and door frame, every exit
wreathed with poison. The coyotes, laughing like children,
ate our housecats when they slipped out the door.
It’s easy to believe people are the hazards, that God’s good
earth can only give us safe things. Indifferent, the soil
flakes on the hands of the playing child,
flakes on the hands of the dead.
Renee Emerson was born in Tennessee and resides in Missouri. She has published poems in magazines such as Perspectives, Still, and Valley Voices, and currently teaches online courses for various universities. She is the author of Keeping Me Still (Winter Goose Publishing 2014) and Threshing Floor (Jacar Press 2016), and is online at www.ReneeEmerson.wordpress.com.