Back in Virginia
you plowed at midnight
after linty days carding cotton in the mill.
John Deere headlights
parted the night sea of soil,
the furrows deep
in your forehead,
fertile earth for growing slips of sons.
No farm for you now,
just the late shift building trucks.
The boys need boots, fresh peaches,
bigger shirts and miles of fishing line.
You crawl in bed past midnight,
not quite hoping to wake the baby
so you can hear him nurse in the dark.
He draws and swallows and you
think of our other boys, how you
kiss the backs of their morning necks
and hand them hammers.
Previously published in the North Carolina Poetry Society's
"Award Winning Poems, 2000"
Used with the permission of the Poet.
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