Antebellum

This is a rough poem from my thesis, which is due in a week.

Crunch time GO—

"Antebellum"

This is a cold and murky 4 x 6

from our retired home, by

a broken AE-1, leftover from the canon

of junk our grandparents

finished using.

This is January-sharp,

the air where playground students

pretend to smoke twigs

while their tunafish mothers sit in cornflower kitchens

with closed windows and filled trashcans

smells that won’t leave

and curled posters of unknown forests.

This is moving forward

to a younger house

that never had slaves

or the pecan trees

These are students, climbing.