Ron Rash Night Poems
- 1. Whippoorwill
The night Silas Broughton died
neighbors at his bedside heard
a dirge rising from high limbs
in the nearby woods, and thought
... - 2. The Skeleton In The Dogwood
(Watauga County, 1895)
Two lovers out walking found
more than spring's promised blessing
... - 3. The Exchange
Between Wytheville, Virginia
and the North Carolina line,
he meets a wagon headed
where he's been, seated beside
... - 4. The Corpse Bird
Bed-sick she heard the bird's call
fall soft as a pall that night
quilts tightened around her throat,
her grey eyes narrowed, their light
... - 5. The Bridge
Barbed wire snags like briars when
fence posts rot in goldenrod,
the cows are gone, the cowpath
a thinning along the creek
... - 6. Deep Water
The night smoothes out its black tarp,
tacks it to the sky with stars.
Lake waves slap the bank, define
a shoreline as one man casts
... - 7. Brown Lung
Sometimes I'd spend the whole night coughing up
what I'd been breathing in all day at work.
I'd sleep in a chair or take a good stiff drink,
anything to get a few hours rest.
...
