by Mara Adamitz Scrupe
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| Adamitz Scrupe's original drawings “Fallible” (left) and “What” are from a series entitled “Mourning Drawings”. More information about these and other artwork is available at www.scrupe.com. |
in meth lab country we shove rags
in our mouths
so nobody knows we’re abandoned
lately I hear more
than I have in years in referendum’s heat
so hot
we’re home-stunned/ advantaged still
whispering/ triumphal: if all my dreams came true
rednecks & crackers & good old boys
(accurate as anything I guess) alongside my aunties & uncles
& first cousins left-behind Jack Pine Savages if you’re looking up
north
know a .22’s perfect for squirrel dead aim blind
sharpshooters in this homegrown war you never
saw coming & the angels of our better natures shift
to snipers/ take the blunt/ try hard not to die
(for whatever that’s worth) & journalists opine
& pundits outline options it won’t last long
or get off your over-educated asses & rumble
respectively
& the spotlight's on misfits & white woman renegades & lip
service & the other audience/ the other side/ half over the shoulder
patriots ever bruise-less ever unblemished
cocksure until
today the tree guy I’ve known since he was a twelve year old kid
came by (& Iraq & Afghanistan & a bad attitude)
stands at my door we two in-country real-life rural witnessers
we in the fire we waiting it out in a gale hermetic
as felted wool we two fixed in the blind spot
our salients spelled out
Mara Adamitz Scrupe is a writer and visual artist. She was born and raised in Minnesota and has lived in Virginia for the past thirty years. While both her home and her adopted States went for the Democratic candidate, she’s pretty sure almost all of her relatives voted Republican.