~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Southern Cross the Dog

The abandoned rail spur is mad with wildflowers
as I am mad for the woman named Alejandra.
Obsessed, you could say. I see her name
all around me, smell her in the empty ice
of my afternoon gin and tonic, hear her voice
in every phone box, ripped out cords,
graffiti, coke powder dropped on the ground
in haste, it don’t matter. It speaks to me.

Alejandra. The music of her, chugged
in the trains of the Illinois Central
on the way to the bars of New Orleans.
Sung along the blues trail in campgrounds
and cafes. Give me a guitar and I’ll sing her
myself. She ain’t done nothin’ but glance
at me sideways as she moves with the dim grace
of an alley cat, and puts down my breakfast of grillades

and grits—no smile, no how you doin'? Nothin’,
but be Alejandra, the woman whose name
has a carnival lilt, who lights my soul like the moon
lights a late night in winter. I am one sick
and be-dazed hunter of railroad spikes,
radio on, car sweeping a wide dance around
an unknown woman, named pinned on her pocket,
no lipstick, no ring, and she don’t even know my name.

Chores and Snores

Hyacinth, April and Penny
sat on the back porch shelling peas
for Mama, a big container of sweet tea
to quench their sweaty thirst,
music on the radio to keep company
with their chatting, kept on low not to wake
Daddy, sleeping just inside on the Goodwill couch,
fan on his face, hangover fumes rising like ghosts
over his snoring self.

It was a late night last night, he and Mama both.
Never thought they’d see the day Anne-Marie
got herself hitched again, it was a big celebration.
Almost as big as the wake for Anne-Marie’s ole’ Frank,
good with his hands for fixing everything else
but stupid as dirt with a shotgun. One misfire
and who woulda thought. Made all the men
run home and check their shell reloaders.
Figure Frank did a service to the wives—
gave them a reason to dress up and dance.

Mama hung laundry, infusing the glorious scent
of sunshine in their time-worn sheets, and the girls shelled,
looking out at a counting lesson of raised beds
of deliciousness, all green and growing tall,
‘cept for the shorter beans and berries, trellised
and supported pretty with Daddy’s help one Saturday.
Didn’t matter if from the road they looked poor
as peasants, in fact they were, but as the girls squinted
at the light flaring off copper tape to ward off snails,
they knew the important lesson of not to judge.

Daddy came out, kissed his girls, a playful smack
on Mama’s behind made her drop her wash, hug him
big and round. He grabbed a handful of peas,
appreciated the cottonball sky, made a mental note
to pick up rock salt. Fishing is fine, squeezing
in the duck blind with buddies talkin’ smack, hidden
by thickets of cypress and live oak, well that’s fine too,
but ice cream with his girls on the first day of summer,
now that’s true beauty, like a child swingin’ so high,
her face almost touches the sun.

Tobi Alfier is a multiple Pushcart nominee and multiple Best of the Net nominee. Her full-length collection “Somewhere, Anywhere, Doesn’t Matter Where” was published by Kelsay Books. “Slices of Alice & Other Character Studies” was published by Cholla Needles Press. She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com).