Mrs. Carty
Old bottles purpled
in sun perch
on the back porch shelf.
She talks of hunting
them in trash pits
near their homestead.
Family headed west,
eighteen-eighties,
grandfather settled
to work the lead-
zinc smelter, hands
trembling, lungs shot.
Husband built her this house
just before Hoover—
they held on.
She’s not leaving.
Crow calls from the backyard,
sun slants through old flasks—
brown, green, claret, clear.
It’s July, rainy season—
a thunderhead rises
over the mountain.
| Tony Reevy |
|
