Famine Road
Andrea Read
1.
I will tell you the whole story
It goes like this –
Once upon a time it was not a fine day
I see a dark thread running through the cloth of your family.
Yes I know this thread it’s crimson
It’s called malaise.
All the women in my family sew
First thing I hemmed was an apron
Hazel and my mother still crochet blankets
No one knits socks anymore.
My grandmother made lace with knots
That’s called tatting.
She had useful fingers
I want to be useful
You are a box of tools disguised as a girl.
2.
First there was thread then there was swimming
There were fish, a crystal clear lake
The family was flush.
On the wide front of one morning, I wake up
The forest is bristling
Will we have enough food today?
Father is not talking
One of his legs is bent, I see him
Through the courtyard gate
Oh those were the old days, big as dinner plates.
3.
We were traveling east
Loaded with tubers
The ground was saying things again
And we were suffering
You said – you shall not defile the land
In which you live
In which I also dwell
Then you said –
Be rain
Be unshod
Be unwed
Remember how you sent us packing
How we fled
4.
Run! the children cry. So we run
Quick, children, find your socks!
We run through the middle of the city,
Look for the gate leading out
5.
I am packed
Inside myself I hold
like an hour
all the rest
In the field
in the vicinity
of things
the family walks
outside
and I do not
I am cold
Inside myself my feet
walk outside
6.
One night our blessings
crack
I am cold
smell of buttermilk and almonds
That means you are bereaved.
Two extra legs
inside myself or
overall
7.
Say something about the tent.
In the vicinity of supper
in the field
of things –
always the tent
Always the tent moving.
Every night I
smell traveling
pack food
Inside myself
I take time
for supper –
like an hour
Life is mild
and arrives.
8.
Let’s go ahead and name that place
Let’s name it giant
No, name it gigantic.
How’s my story holding up?
You must order and reorder the woods.
How will I ever name that place
(kinship)
again –
Andrea Read’s poems have appeared most recently, or are forthcoming, in Barrow Street, Black Rabbit Quarterly, Copper Nickel, FIELD, Lily Poetry Review, Plume, The Missouri Review, and Tupelo Quarterly. She lives with her family in Somerville, Massachusetts.