DEUTERONOMY 31:6
“...The Lord your God who goes with you; he will never leave or forsake you.”
I
Hello. It’s me.
Once more do I reach my arms out to you,
hoping to find your cool touch at the end of them.
We are in desperate need of charity.
This unrelenting heat....
The men in the field spew battery acid from every pore,
the fruit hide their virgin stalks in shame, and
even the sunflowers shield their once beaming faces.
The people have been poisoned. They sit in silence like dynamite sticks,
rocking slowly on the wicker chairs that litter their front porches,
staring out at the town, eyes unblinking, yet glinting militant and malicious,
waiting.
I myself have grown foolish with hatred,
thoughts washing up bloated and waterlogged on the shores
of agnosticism, and what lies on the other side of the county line.
It clings to my mind like a layer of dust on a grandfather clock.
I've watched its pendulum swing for centuries it seems,
oscillating between salt and vitriol, either malice or dread fed into the
cogs, and now, once more, we've swung into
a land of neon green–
II
It's me
again.
Fear grips me so viscerally I wake up in the night, convinced a viper has swaddled my throat.
The blood here has slowed to a stop.
My mother’s knees are
raw and splintered
and just a few days ago
I spied the pink underbellies
of Farmer Whatshisname’s cows;
a thousand doll-like eyelashes
blinking so slowly
I mistook them
for offerings to
a prehistoric God.
It wasn’t the grotesque tableau
that scared me, but the coolness
with which I accepted its
supposed reality.
They would slit each other’s throats,
I’m sure of it,
for a whisper of relief
or a kind gesture.
For everyday a new cow lifts
her lashes to heaven for the last time.
The people look too, searching for signs
in the clear blue from their windows,
their porches,
the scant shade of a dying tree.
We were told that’s where you were,
if we ever needed you,
but now I look up, and I do
not see a kingdom of clouds.
In fact, I don’t see anything at all.
Kerri Hewett, 22, USA ✯ IG: @planetarykerri
“Kerri currently studies anthropology, creative writing, and theatre in Virginia.”