SIMEON BERRY

CURFEW


Dad’s anxious
in the corn  Like there’s

a beast huffing
in its strewn center

I want to follow him
into the scorched mortgage

I’m easier

than I should be
I trouble myself like Mom

With her Saint Pater
of the Black Apples

telling her This but not that

Fair but fallow

My period came late
but came

eventually

Stell pilfered something
the color of brake fluid

from the row

of dusty booze in the den

The one where I keep seeing

a fingernail
whirling in its murk

Chains chime in the back

of her pick-up truck
I’m bound

She smells like metal

when she’s excited
Like a tuning fork

wet with spit

Gold pupils close in their rows
Rustling on their green stalks

Stell falls

laughing into the dirt

A sticky tributary of sickly peach

on her truncated shirt

She's got it all off  Bottle tipped

back  Standing slurred
against the corn

Against the field that extends everywhere

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TYPO 24