Vox Populi, Vox Dei
       

My father taught me well: you can split whole cords
with a chipped maul & still forsake

the shed. Proof: corner store ruptured
by weeds chin-high, even the high school

has closed. Out here, where tire plants landmark,
mill men drift and jaw:

If you cut both a man's hands from his body,
even his family will think him dead.

          Father, debtor, crankhead, snitch.

                    No one revenge
will do—harm has a hectare

of timberwoods & a zip code
where people say belief

is what gets them through.
To be girl in a place where bruise

is prelude. We all learn quick
as a clip point blade—cool and nicking

threat against the inner thigh.

                    My father taught me well:
Can't chase away a name. This is the earth

I shall inherit: Steam idles over
the recycling plant, slack bales queue up

in these, our dry fields, & his bones
won't thaw before March.

Out here, you ask a man for mercy
he'll spit and call you senseless.

You tell this land Forget me
but it gives you sons instead.

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Copyright © 2020 Victoria C. Flanagan All rights reserved
from Glossary of Unsaid Terms
Beloit Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission