Drought

Drought

The smell of dirt, always
the smell of dry dirt down in Georgia
where I sweated through summer,
my father complaining about the blue sky
stretching all the way west into Arkansas.
Dry ice they’d tumble
from planes sometimes. Thunder
and strong wind might come

but no rain. The pigs grumbled
from sunup to sundown. The cows stood
immobilized under the oak trees,
their turds turning black as the biscuits I burned
while I daydreamed. Where I played I saw corn dying
year after year, teased by dust devils
leaving their dust in between my toes
and in ring after ring round my neck. I scrubbed
ring after ring of black dirt from the bathtub
at night. I got used to my own sweat

and so much hot weather
the silly petunias collapsed
by mid-afternoon. Without looking I knew what
I’d find, the whole flower bed lazy

as I was. You hold up
your shoulders straight, I heard a thousand times.
Books on my head, I’d be sent out
to water the flowers as if that would help salvage
anything but my good humor, the smell of wet dirt

my reward, for which I knew I ought
to be grateful. I am
grateful, now that I’m thirsty as dry land

I stand upon, stoop-shouldered,
wanting a flash flood to wash away Georgia
while I aim the water hose into a sad patch of pansies
as if nothing’s changed. I can still hear my father complain
while my mother cooks supper and I swear to leave
home tomorrow. In Oregon dams burst
but I don’t believe it. Here water is
only illusion, an old trick
light plays on the high way that runs north
through field after field after field.


from The Girl in the Midst of the Harvest, Texas Tech University Press, 1986, AWP Award Series