My brother’s laces
hugged by maggots.
He is warm and safe here.
Beyond the wall,
twenty thousand chickens
keen for broken egg skies.
They won’t laugh
if he wets his pants
or send him home
for screaming.
(Someday he will learn
not to act handicapped.)
He plucks foam
from the vinyl chair,
watches the thermometer
on the yellowed
kitten calendar. Last
December falls.
Outside the barn,
the dog paces
at the end of
his nine-year-long chain
where the cars
speeding to a city
can’t chase him.
3 comments:
Evokes the mood/emotion. nine-year-long chain, broken egg skies.
the concrete details as well (foam from chair, thermometer on yellowed kitten calendar)
I couldn't picture hugged by maggots. maybe it's the verb. I thought he was dead at first. something to look at.
The whole thing evokes the expulsion though, otherwise. I feel sad.
I'm mostly echoing what's been said already re: the well-chosen details. I, too, couldn't picture what's happening in the first line.
Do you need the line "He is warm and safe here"? Just wondering if that's shown clearly enough in other lines.
You're right. "Hugged" by was a last minute change. Originally it was "surrounded by." "Warm and safe" was supposed to be ironic. I have a lot of bitterness about my parents' practice of keeping my brother in the barn entrance with the maggots instead of his room all day so he'd be "safe" while learning that being expelled from school for acting "handicapped" wasn't a reward or holiday. I'm guessing that context isn't coming through.
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