Kayleb Rae Candrilli
December 30, 2018
In rural America, beware
of dog signs are security
systems posted, point
blank in single pane
windows. The bullet always so much
worse than the bang.
Sometimes I imagine I never left
the fields in which I was unwelcome.
Sometimes I can still
see my father hiding
plywood riddled with rusty
nails under a bed of fall
leaves. In rural America
the warning is to draw
first blood. I remember
the ATVs with their popped
tires, the neighbors’ horses
with their tetanused hooves.
You know, friendship
is so unlikely to bloom
where you are unwanted.
My father and the land
taught me everything
about being small and quiet.
They taught me
not to want
a thing.
Which is almost as long
as the Trojan war. The year
my father took her was all oil spills
and counting the distance between us
with cigarettes, flipped end over end
for thousands of watery miles.
My father only loves fentanyl
and his own brass hands.
It has always been this way.
Yesterday, when my sister escaped
in the middle of the night,
she wore
black eyes
and a pillowcase
for luggage. In the morning,
my mother made
her waffles—like she would have
any other Sunday.
Jenzo DuQue
Janice Lee
Chelsea Sutton
