I never weeded smoke
so it roomed with a ghost
wearing starlight all day.
My ancestors shivered with me.
I swallowed campfire heat
with my coffee, I asked one ghost
why that drowned shack in the river
chases the mud suckers home.
And the ghost answered me with
whippoorwill words: You can’t pull
fire from your heart. Purple-rib,
purple-rib, purple-rib. I listened
till its wings fetched me the whole sky.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 27, Issue 3.
Clyde Kessler lives in Radford, Virginia, with his wife, Kendall, and their son, Alan. Several years ago they added an art studio to their home and named it Towhee Hill. In 2017 Cedar Creek published his book of poems, Fiddling At Midnight’s Farmhouse, which Kendall illustrated.
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