Tuesday, November 22, 2016

SALIENTS

by Mara Adamitz Scrupe


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.