Jolie Lisenby
From Red Rock Road
Running along splintered fence posts
that gingerly held
five strands of barbed wire….
like a trapeze artist,
I’d squeeze between the lines
before sprinting through tall, gold green grass.
There, the herd would graze
until my father’s Chevy
would call them close,
close enough for them to see
the flecks of milky paint
peeling from weathered boards
under a tired tin roof
that often burned the rain
back into the clouds
before it could rinse the clothes
that hung on the line.
Clothes—like my older brother’s sapphire shirt—
the one I couldn’t wait to wear
since I was next in line.
I’d watch its arms flutter faintly
next to denim stained with last year’s harvest
and sun-drenched bonnets
that wrestled with the clothes pins
when the breeze was kind.
My oldest sister would watch woefully
before turning her sights to the red gravel road
that led out to the blacktop,
never promising not to go
while the youngest ones huddled inside
by a single, cast-iron furnace
in the middle of the room where daddy would sit,
tugging the right strap of his overalls
as he rocked to the evening news.
Then mama would call from the kitchen,
beans and rice to hold us,
dreaming of Christmas nights
where the table would be set special
with pork that had been smoked in a whiskey barrel
under my favorite oak.
Its wrinkled branches held me through the years
as I climbed higher and higher, perched in the watch-branches
where I’d fold my hands and send silent prayers
like paper planes in the dark,
hoping they’d land beyond the pasture
where city lights beckoned me.
