The Blade
he shaped knives with ash
handles like the one that bends
to the shape of her leg inside
scarred boots
gone on forty years now and still
sharp enough to cut through
burr cucumber the ropey vines
of hopweed spines of smilax
as she blazes trails
dusk drops and her hands reek
of No Hunting purple paint
she breathes in
trying to catch the scent
of her Daddy’s gasoline
stained shirt
tung oiled boots
only catches lemon
drifting from sumac
heat rising
off the river and the blade
At the Farmhouse on the Highway
She doesn’t know where they went
just that they’re gone those strands
of turquoise and hot cerise she hung
on the arms of blue berried cedars
spiking weedy pasture fence lines
leaves them anyway snips
and twists she calls the leavings
after she’s hooked another scarf
she’ll hang from the river bridge
come winter free for the taking
imagines them wrapped like ribbons
around shivering bodies beneath
those cardboard boxes dusted with snow
shoulders swaying their way to soup kitchens
sends them missives freighted with her
thoughts that echo in empty rooms where
she throws worsted like Rapunzel
goes out only to barter for more
with fall produce knickknacks slid
from dusty shelves even as she says
she doesn’t need to know where any
of it’s gone snips twists scarves produce
tchotchkes admits that when her eyes
stay open more and more on moonless nights
she might wonder every now and then
The Weight of Wool
in a woman’s gray wool coat
from Farrar’s on the Plaza
in Kansas City
her mother’s fond of telling
people how it is
first class
while she struggles with the second
hand hem dragging
tries to stand tall
to keep it
out of muddy gutters
fails
to understand
how special it is
a find at the thrift store
on Troost
right on the bus line
being the laughingstock
at school doesn’t help
name brands tony locations
names brand
her mother cuts the shank buttons off
gray faux pearl
with silver centers
when it wears out
wool gone slick
as horse hair
beneath
a poorly cinched saddle
her shoulders too long yoked
helps cut it then
into long strips braids
a wool rug placed in the middle
of the front room by the green divan
says it’s like being walked on
She Can’t Risk Killing
poison ivy until fall
when birds nesting
on the corner post
have fled and sap
draws down the way
she feels she’s settled
into her feet today
dragging as she hikes
to the high gardens
where spurge flows out
from carrots like green water
the same color as the dead pond
its early summer layer of algae
in full bloom she searches back
through the night she can’t remember
if she dreamed the moment
when she started counting
how many fence posts keep her
inside these boundaries
so she searches daylight hours
for gates she can slip through
untwist the wire he’s wrapped
from old clothes hangers bales
of dead grass that will never feed
a horse moves the rocks that keep
the rabbits out with stealth until
she pops out over the ridge runs
toward the fields rank with wild
strawberries and sinks low to
hunker below whipping switchgrass
where she gorges on red berries
he’ll never even see her fingers
bloody with the plucking stained
presses again against the hurricane
fence dividing the back gardens
where she grew up her fingers
laced through the wire diamonds
to touch the girl on the other side
whispers falling onto strawberries
their bloodied bare feet
Pat Anthony writes the backroads, often inspired by soil and those that work it. Often using land as lens she mines characters, relationships and herself. A longtime educator, she holds an MA in Humanities Literature, Cal State, among others, poems daily, edits furiously and scrabbles for honesty no matter the cost. She has work published or forthcoming in Cholla Needles, Heron Tree, Quail Bell, Third Wednesday, Tipton Poetry Review, Open Minds Quarterly, Orchard Street Press, Passager, Red Wolf Journal, Snakeskin, The Blue Nib and others.