Chapin City Blues

Kudzu vines dip beneath the tree line like ropes.
Southern gothic.
The river ends in a pool of long, thin men.
Wading.
Their ponytails whip
out of the water and we dock. I hadn’t noticed
the weather is hot.
Even the buzzards stop and reconsider.
And the current
carries a fleet of crinkled beer cans

toward us. Did they see
you kiss me?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real gun in my life.
How fast can I load a boat?
I ask myself while you take us out,
you rush to take us out—to
take my dumb ass out of the holler.

R. K. Fauth’s poems have appeared in several publications including Plumwood Mountain Journal, AGNI Literary, and Poetry Magazine, where you can read this poem in its entirety. Her book, A Dream in Which I Am Playing with Bees, is the winner of the MacDonald First Book Prize in Poetry.