H. Palmer Hall

"Big Thicket Requiem, Part 2"

 

(Originally published in RATTLE, Reprinted in The Red Palm a revised version with five other parts appeared in Palo Alto Review and American Diaspora, an anthology from University of Iowa Press)

II.

Blacktop yellow stripe down the middle

they dragged a living man down

down until they dragged a dead man

broken into pieces

 

on either side, tall pines, planted

every ten years pulped after growth

tall enough to mill the paper

to publish the obituary

 

these woods have a dead man in them

broken shredded into black asphalt

head legs torso scattered like needles

deep woods whisper here

 

a thousand people drive over red specks

spread droplets of raging tears but

a dead man's dying cannot roll dark

thicket into shining light