Hannah Matzecki
Image by Janet Meyer from Pixabay
Hannah Matzeci is the editor of Kitchen Table Quarterly, and is humbled to have had work previously appear in Ghost City Review and Warm Milk Vol. 3.
Hope, Texas
We go west—
under angel oak canopies holding needy ghosts and
side-swept spanish moss curtains that smell like
summer, thick and humid
with sweat that soaks through white cotton shirts
we go alongside open toothed alligator mouths
and vats of boiled gas-station peanuts, across bridges
suspended over rivers like an omen
where barges carried people but called them cargo
by ranks of ankles bound to black bags, married by bodies
to palms prodding at lost wrappers with pity
and past sunburnt armies boarding air conditioned busses
all pledging their allegiance to Elvis
We go west—
away from broken wood slat buildings and
rickety fire escapes rocked by old time roller coasters
away from linen shawls slipped from shoulders, sudsed and wrung and strung
above cluttered soot courtyards and bedrooms that are kitchens, too
away from snowbound streets lashed with thatch
and windows framing gilt candles after the sun has gone each Friday
though we can’t seem to remember any of those things now…There is a sign that says
Hope, Texas (population 673)
where rusted trucks melt into rusted gates
and boarded walls slump tired
into forgotten dust-bleached verandas
that once made a home for trellised honeysuckle
offering lemonade and reprieve from a midday heat
heavy enough to break stern cowboy brows
that have
no place left
to look back from
there are no hobbled porches for them
to stand on and squint
disapprovingly at far away license plates going west
there aren’t even any paper cups with popped plastic lids
hiding in burnt pastureland like starving snakes—
just another tumbleweed on the highway
to an emerald city somewhere else
just another pencil scratch on a wrinkled map
marking a name that used to be a place
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
© 2022 West Trade Review
Stay Connected to Our Literary Community. Subscribe to Our Newsletter
