~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Featured Poet • J. Bruce Fuller

Charaxos

O divine sea-daughters of Nereus, let

my brother return here unharmed

and let whatever his heart desires

be fulfilled.

And may he undo all past mistakes

—Sappho, from Fragment 5

I would not be so hard on you, brother,

as that great mistress once was with Charaxos.

When you go to sea, to the oil rigs,

let me remember the peril and judge not

your mistakes on the shore.

It is not my place.

My place is to remember you, curly blond,

among the turnrows hunting doves—

of all our brothers, the best shot by far—

let me remember the tracker in you,

the hunt forever stirring in you.

And let me remember too

all the unrest that lives in me.

We are the same. Like our father

the same. We wrestle, with the sea,

with a power too great for us.

they said

they said beau was on that crystal and that’s why he lost so much weight

come back from summer break looking long and thin

so the coaches moved him from left tackle to outside linebacker

and i was so skinny that kids made jokes and threw food at me in the cafeteria

they said eat a cheeseburger couillon they said

and i didn’t want to be skinny no more and i didn’t want to be weak no more

and i didn’t want to do crystal even though beau was popular now

even though his new girlfriend was a real dixie queen

and when the ark-la-miss news said he was dead

i didn’t understand and i didn’t know they also called it meth

-----

they said the lord wasn’t gonna flood the world no more

but he must have forgot about us so we took what we could

from the waterlogged houses mostly guns mostly pill bottles

mostly things we could sell no questions asked

in my neighbor’s house i smashed the door of a gun cabinet

and the deer etched on the glass scattered

they said take that shit hurry the fuck up

but i just stood there looking til we left

they said you a pussy you coulda made a fortune

they said édouard got sent to angola

and come back with a swastika on his neck

-----

they said blood is made in the bones but oil comes from the gulf

and when the storms rock the rigs the chaplain takes confessions

and the boys cross themselves all night

they said big dan got blown up and burned all over

and now he lights his cigarettes with his ring finger

they said the settlement money is long gone

they said when the rigs catch fire some boys jump

they said them boys burn and even the water can’t put them out

-----

they said his daddy’s a sonofabitch and they said he’s a drunk

and they said he ain’t got no daddy noways

i try to remember everything i don’t know about myself

like is he inside here somewhere just waiting to lash out of me

they said you look so much like your daddy

you so much like him i could spit

and they said he killed a man and that’s why he run off

and i remember the night and the kitchen sink and maman yelling

and the blood running down his face and i know it’s true 

-----

they said if you don’t fight him then we’ll beat your ass

so i took the three-foot branch of pine

from the side of the road and i bashed his fucking face in

i can’t remember his name but i know they say it sometimes

when they’re drunk and looking back and thinking about how good they had it

back then when we were hungry and terrible and young

they said you one of us now they said you don’t never have to be alone now

they said you did good they said you did good they said you did good

Sit Still

I watch for deer

through the kitchen window,

for any rustle at woods’ edge

as we did when we were young.

Small boys take small steps

and the wood grows darker

each year.

Deeper in, a canal

cuts through, the trees

beyond, unfamiliar.

In summer, when the canal

water is low, fish writhe

in filmy pools, a feast for egrets

and boys with rakes.

A month into flood season,

the water is no longer hidden

in the earth, and the horses

have come in from the rain.

The water has reached

the woods’ edge, and the deer

have come out, ears twitching,

nervous. They smell

our horses, boat motors,

the oil in the water,

and step back beyond the trees.

Parable

When I am low and thinking darkly

there often comes to mind a moment

from my childhood of two brothers

about our own age named Cain and Abel

not the boys from the Book

but the sons of a friend of my father

who invited us to stay one Christmas

when we were down on our luck again

and how after we played all afternoon

in the yard with an old foam football

and ate together boiled shrimp with rice

we sat down to watch the boys open their presents

and I didn’t realize until Abel

opened his to find the same football

two chunks of foam torn by the dogs

how none of the toys were in packages

and many I had seen earlier in their room

and how I couldn’t keep the shame

from my face as I met Cain’s eyes

and his look was a stone I have carried with me

on some days as heavy as the way

he placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder

and O God how I can’t find the lesson

in all of this O dear God of terrible mercies