Truth
In the end I did not hike the Katy Trail from Jefferson City’s center
across the concrete bicycle path over the river
down the asphalt road to North Jefferson (where the bathrooms are always locked)
to Hartsburg, the bed and breakfast, the restaurant of cold water,
to the place where the trail meets the MKT
and enter into Columbia, downtown, Stephen’s College,
arriving finally at the home of my children.
I never saw cave bats or entered a cave
nor did I touch the palisades.
I did not walk beside a stretch of the Missouri
though I felt the cruelty of its current,
tasted its cruel waters through my skin,
floundered at the spot where the lynched bodies were dumped to hide the evidence.
| Copyright © 2013, 2023 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively. |
Your lines from years ago:
ReplyDelete"(where the bathrooms are always locked)....///
"floundered at the spot where the lynched bodies were dumped to hide the evidence"
remind me of your "distaste of humanity" phrase from your poem in progress (inspired by Maik Strosahl's "Earthshine"). There's so much human that dwells in the dark shadows, and haunts us.