Mint
Gregory Lawless
For Sam So much birch and river beech by the creek bank, and loose blasts of asters on the hem of the field break, and lesser weeds, like pigweed and tall anemone—like seaweed dreams, or worse dreams, eerie and willowy. And then the piles of old stove pipe and odd scrap, the sorry gnarls of roller chain and flat chain, and wild flowers growing through bear traps—little patches of parsley, maybe, maybe mint. A dirtyard blooming dirt, green toy tractors and a trampoline torn near the frame and silver springs. Have I seen what you've seen? The homemade no-trespassing signs nailed to pines, the meth man in the shack back a bit from Route 6, all tic and smoke and crazed skin, his face a light corn yellow, edged red and raw at the jaw. It won't rain. It don't rain no more, he says. All the windblown pollen and dust slapped down by the creek trees. God twisted trees. Good trees. Do you see the trees that I see? See the possum skins on the fence posts, sweet rot, sweet ripe meat? The sun is fat. Do you see me hiding out under the hood of the covered wood bridge, the planking warping up and the nails half-sucked out? My nails are falling out. I'm half un-hammered, half chewed through, battered and bored out a bit. I'll make it where I'll make it to. You'll make it, too, I think—thorned, burred, and so lightly burned—but I cannot promise you that.