these Presbyterian Highlands sniffed

Phil Hall

  these Presbyterian Highlands sniffed
indignant to be demonized by tiny limestone bones

  the pouting shadow of a fresh hole might blaspheme
twist a perfectly graceful egg-gathering hand

  to a gnarled gizzard only good for hanging a toy purse on
each Sunday — a tissue back of a clasp

  I saw Byron Lambert in the school furnace room
take off his overalls & put on a beard over his beard

  I grant each year its glowing paunch & shank
not mummery — each stark as the first years I knew here

  the Salvation Army's bushel of puzzles & molded hair
its turkey pond-hard (the blind horse's eye)— some doing

  to tenderize it all now as game — gobble — gravy — wish
get away from me with that CBC pander-mulch frippery

  the fossils in the stone piles are talking to me their chalk

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Phil Hall's works copyright © to the author.