Poetry: Selections from Carla McGill

Granny’s House

By the time the heat is strong,

six-pack cartons throughout the shed

cars parked along the U-shaped gravel road

Grandpa’s overalls full of pipe smoke;

the ominous laughter.

 

Four miles south, Mr. Brown

has two hundred chickens, a dozen

hogs, the palomino mare

always eating carrots,

rabbits in elongated tin sheds.

 

All before the steel mill

arose to pull men from ranches

grapefruit orchards

and in the north of town

some promising vineyards.

 

Crows, steady as railroad ties,

calling through coarse and golden fields;

and the great mountain, giant

of memory and presence is splashed,

streaked with daylight.

 

In the next decade, bruised slopes

ache in the purple aftermath

TV lights appear in the window

from the house where Granny

irons pillowcases, drinks cold milk.

Morning

Morning mist above the tracks

eucalyptus trees lined up

silent in recoil and shiver

 

Granny’s coffee pours,

the dog sleeps in suspicion

on uneven porch stones

 

Crows know these plaintive pepper

trees on the other side, clapboard

house, hoses tightly wound

 

Substance of waiting

stirring of pathetic leaves

as autumn weighs down

 

Now men of the house

have arisen, search for answers

in silence like the rest of us

Trees, Mars 

Trail leading to that little market;

two ambulatory girls,

candy wrappers, and back home

tomato soup, grilled cheese lunch

outside by oleanders, primitive enclave.

 

Scrub oaks near that shirt factory

reaching out to sky above palm tree heights

to places on Mars not yet named;

for example, Yellow Knife Bay.

Somehow our joys were out there.

 

We didn’t speak of fathers,

but of cleaning the planters

at her aunt’s apartment, washing

white stones, susurration

in the eucalyptus windbreak.

Winds and the Blood Moon

Granny said it was the blood moon

coming on, so we wait, Pal

in his young dog years.

Sort through the glove

compartment of the blue

Ford Fairlane: whiskey bottle,

no cap, on its side, another

on the passenger side floor.

 

Train blares through, and we find

a bloodied hankie in the back seat,

a Kaiser Steel shirt, Pal sniffs two bags

of chicken feed. Windows down,

and winds starting up; we feel

them before they arrive

like ghosts, like knife thrusts.

No moon yet, sunlight fading.

 

Nonetheless, we wander

down the tracks, count railroad

ties, and then up to the windbreak,

his golden fur warm in the October

chill as I lean against peeling bark.

We scrutinize rocks, survey fields, waiting

for that moon, which never appears

though the vicious winds push us home.

Winds Through the Pass

Winds through the pass

highlight aimless,

point to nothing,

disperse dirt to re-land

and pebbles wait it out

in the distance from

car dealerships, diners

crows on the roof.

 

It is twelve years

from the terrible sickness

that took him, my father,

whose soul I knew

in those sea days

when blue was full

to the west.

 

Each hospital drive

fierce, while out here now,

these winds through the pass

have no real destination;

strong presence for a time

then the vanishing.

Carla McGill’s work has been published in The Atlanta Review, Brief Wilderness, Bryant Literary Review, Shark Reef, Crack the Spine, Westview, Common Ground Review, Caveat Lector, Cumberland River Review, Euphony Journal, The Hungry Chimera, Carbon Culture Review, Press, Neologism Poetry Journal, DASH Literary Journal, Pioneertown, Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, Sheila-Na-Gig, Streetlight Magazine, The Summerset Review, The Penmen Review, Cloudbank, Paragon Journal, Burningword, Whistling Shade, The Alembic, California Quarterly, Waxing & Waning,Broad River Review, and others. Her story, “Thirteen Memories,” received an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train’s MAR/APR 2016 Very Short Fiction Contest. She writes poetry and fiction.