Lord, Have Mercy: Don’t Go to Hell Cramped Up

Vandal Poem of the Day: March 9, 2021

 by Rodney Terich Leonard

Father, 1959

Daddy loads, cocks, & aims his gun.
Four young girls & their baby brother
trace the woods
by mercy of the moon.

Briar-torn legs bleed a simpler truth:
no enjoying June today.
Ever smiled an alcoholic into
burying his flask & bully?
Probably easier to patty-cake with the sun.

Son, 1999

He tongues the last cubes
of Johnny Walker’s twist & trick.
Sleep rinses his eyes yellow-pain clear.
Own pail to pull,
bobby pin headed toward the eardrum,
the clack of dominoes,
bones on the table.

The twenty-year deal:
sober hell & jail at fifty—
alphabets to learn, son uttered strangely,
swallowed whole.
Ghosts
to shotgun
again.
from Sweetgum & LightningFind more by Rodney Terich Leonard at the library
Copyright © 2021 Rodney Terich Leonard

Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

Published in Poems Rodney Terich Leonard

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this (publication, website, exhibit, etc.) do not necessarily represent those of the Idaho Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.