Reedy Whimpers

Originally appeared in Broadside, Number 6, March 1991

The reedy whimpers of houses caught by hillsides

Fog down the loam and crust of farm scatterings

Purple with scarves of webbed voices

Like termites singing down a hallway of hymnals

Their bristled ticking afire with chloroform

The harmonica chords of houses that could be boats or effect corpses

The ping of their throats jostled across rocks like sheaves of crickets

Or clouds of accordions funneled through chimneys and porch gaps

To pour their gasping dreams upon the Ozarks

As the wind curls around stovepipes

Ingratiating its form to furniture and photographs

That sit without questioning the ice that will also caress them

When the pumpkins are hidden when the bellows are gone

David Thomas Roberts (October 25, 1989)

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