The Heart, and: Devotional, and: Letter to My Sister, Waking in a Car in Wilmington, North Carolina

Abstract

The Heart, and: Devotional, and: Letter to My Sister, Waking in a Car in Wilmington, North Carolina Colby Cotton (bio) The Heart When it stops, it stops: I'll be a washed corpseunder a field of artificial flowers, blood-drained,a wad of cotton in my septum and anus.It is what it is, my father said,when the dog had to diethe vet shaved the hind leg of our animal,and pressed a needle in him. Roses never grewas my mother hoped, despite eggshell,fertilizer, despite her walkingbelow the bedroom windows singingto the mounds of dirt, despitethe success of bougainvilleas,which were cream and flecked in pink.She watched all summer, the blue and white cupsopen on the petals of an aster, flieshover and land on the stamens. But noroses. When my sister moved out, and away,I sometimes found my father lying downin her bed, watching throughthe window, trucks shift downon the steep grade of Hinkley Hill, dustdrift from the road, and settlein the cut grass. I spent the summer swallowing gravelfrom the drive as he slept. I thought,this is what death is: the called ambulance:laying out on a bed of wheels under anesthesiaa lightness in my head and stomach—when you die, you die. I stay up nights [End Page 160] writing about the hay lofts I worked in,the radio on a power strip, strainingforgettable music through the beamsas I thumbed the incision; the smell of icein the bowls of the mortuaries tonight.A careful weighing of my brainon the scales against the heart, and liver. Devotional After Lowell I never could existin the hoot of barred owls.The writhe of rat snakesby the creeks of Jasper.You were alwayssomewhere distant:waking in a dented truckand a clean shave;or dozing under dome lightsat the wheel, breakingthe meridian toward a fieldI worked. I was alwayssomewhere waiting:pitching hay in the heatof silos and stood, steam-less,by the cattails and creek bedsas You drove the curved roadto the end of my image.I have found holinessin the cipher of rustalong wheel wells.In threshers. Have pressedmy boot into the tilled [End Page 161] ground and held inthe scent of soil. Lord,I have only listened.When I look upfrom my desk at night,there is still footfallthrough the rustof leaves. My cold toeson linoleum, tile. Once,anything could have happened:I walked through the forestwith my rifle and cockedthe hammer. I lay besidetrain tracks and bit the barrel.Lord, why did I live here.How do I die? Letter to My Sister, Waking in a Car in Wilmington, North Carolina In seven nights of silence I woke to seven drawingsof a ram, pinned along my walls. Spit six bullets in a tin cup, and trailed my handsalong the hall to the solitary screen of the porch, trying to decide what was real.How once we entered the white coops with a bucket of grain, and cut our red hair in the back lawn when it grew longas cardinal's wings. How each white feather in the grass still spins the single thread of morning.And I just sit here, and farmhands descend the riverbank. [End Page 162] Their bodies on skiffs slice the smooth, dark water.I have never wanted to live in this town, where once we walked the cold line of linento the sweet gums, and the bloodless petals of crocuses unfurled in the ditches.Before your eyes ever met coast. Before you washed sand from skin there was the aching mare,and a colt in the stall. The blue cord I plucked like guitar string. How many timesI've seen you in the cold wiring of a jay, arcing the iced lawn, I don't know.But today I felt your figure pass the rows of radishes as a light snapped on. I would walk youinto the sumac. Would breathe life into a...