I want to read the love lines
in your blackwatch plaid
and kiss the cracks
in your hard hat
like a snake
tongues the hatchlings
in their coop—an old swing set
dressed in rust and guy-wire.
No I don’t care a bit to change
tonight’s half-baked channel
cat to tenderloin or a toothsome chop
just please let me watch you drink
up the throwaway slushings
of pan lard. I want you to lust
after my leftovers. I don’t mind
to mince words: let me take
your aching feet out of those boots
and massage them like I’m casing
sausage or pin-rolling dough. Go ahead
and get comfortable. I have nothing
to say about the automatic dishwasher
you never got me, or the rain gutter
garroted with leaves, or the toilet seat
birthmarked green and brown. I’ll serve you
iced-tea with a few broken fingers
of bourbon. I’ll help you savor this final day
of free-trial satellite. And later in bed
I might even make you steal
some of my beauty
sleep. This time
I might leave
the light on.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 21, Issue 3.
Ian T. Hall was born and reared in Eastern Kentucky. He has an MFA in poetry from the University of Tennessee, where he served as assistant poetry editor for Grist: a Journal of the Literary Arts. He has published poetry and fiction in Narrative, Kentucky Monthly Magazine, The Louisville Review, Broad River Review, Heartwood, and Bluestem, among others.
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