Kipling called it Hell's basement.
We come each year with the kids
to float The Seven Persons River.
At the airport, we drag our family
history like a thick umbilicus.
They say Blackfoot women gave
birth leaning against a tree,
chewed the cord and daubed
blood on the baby's forehead.
You drink by the pool, I feed slots.
Blessedly lost from each other,
in a thousand years, they'll find us:
a heap of old bones stacked against
a Cottonwood,carved in scrimshaw.
Medicine Hat
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- Posts: 2692
- Joined: 03 Jun 2016, 21:03
Re: Medicine Hat
We live in extraordinary places, which mostly go unrecognized by us who drink by the pool, and feed the slot machines. I love the details, especially about the Blackfoot women. I also like how the close pulls back, to give us death’s perspective…and although I doubt our bones would be carved in scrimshaw. we’d be blessed imho if they were. Good poem.