L.R. Harvey Poetry

BLOOD ON THE SHEETS Of course there’s something beneath our waking that sucks our blood when we’re asleep enough to believe  it. Of course it thrives in the slats of the floorboards, the secondhand  furniture, between the covers  of an old book and the nook behind  the power outlets. We always knew  this itching had to be generated from somewhere,  that even were we to put our fingers on it it would come crawling back  from a crack we hadn’t yet explored.  We’re losing our minds. Nothing is ours anymore. After all this time, our various precautions, to think that we’re finally getting it.

END OF MY ROPE Evidently we’ve miscalculated the coordinates: the end  of ourselves is miles further  than we imagined on setting out. Don’t leave it out: We won’t be back  in time for dinner. And to consider  that tangle once passed for a garden is to admit we didn’t yet unearth  the mother-weed. Wash the linens  and scrub the baseboards  till our knees bleed, in the morning  the newest offspring goes  skittering across the sheets.  There may have been a death,   and it may have been real  enough, but the dead are now  waking us from sleep as they knock  at the door and invite us to come  with them into the dark dawning of a world with always more dying to do.

GATLINBURG And then after woofing a sackful  of fudge we’ll share two scoops  of Krazy Kaeden’s pork rinds,  Extra Krispy, as we pick through  Route 66 signs and mass-produced authentic Indian leatherwork  before settling on an initialed knife  or a cast-iron skillet on our way out  the door to the indoor waterpark,  looking out the window for bears prowling through the tree-line  of signs for antique stores. What’s that?  You think you’re too good for this?  You think the crowded strip of yourself makes some kind  of all-natural, cohesive sense?

FIFTH-WHEEL I used to follow comfortably behind pick-up trucks or trailers loaded down with a frayed couch or maybe a handful  of water heaters. They wouldn’t let  someone transport such a haul, I used  to think, unless they were sure they knew what they were doing. In the ensuing  years I have since acquired a load  of my own and an old trailer, a tangle  of ratchet straps. I click them down  and give it a shake with a half- hearted “that’s not going anywhere,”  like everyone else who hauls around  the odd angles of their life behind them, breath partially held and eyes bouncing back and forth from road to rearview.

COMMUTE Quit kidding yourself: this late  in the game no one gets a full view  of things, windshield fully defrosted.  If we’re going to make it it’ll be hunched over the wheel and hawking  the dotted line through a pinhole,  changing lanes in faith  that if we can survive a mile  or two further down the road  things may yet open up a bit.

TEETERING The alarm has rung too loud for too long to consider even a brief return to sleep. And if what we’ve made of our days till now is a consequence of being wide awake, kicking off the covers is neither too enticing.  But there’s roughly ten minutes where sense is fluid as the water beside the bed, and the dream  doesn’t need to take the stand  to defend itself. It’s this thin- between that needs stretching   like a swim cap till it snaps over  the world’s scalp, the rest of our hours. What could we make of this place if we believed in it enough to dive in?

THIS FAR SOUTH About once every two years belief  sticks overnight and musters up  a few inches. Outlined in white, the woods don't make us choose between forest and trees. Our soles let us know  exactly where we’ve been already,  where we’ve yet to go, and the road  behind the house is hushed  as the schools close—who would dare to venture knowing in these conditions? Over the steam of a packet of quick mix someone says it’s hard to believe there are people out there who live like this all the time. 

NOT FAR BACK The swell of cicada washed over  the scald of late Georgia July then receded back into the deep  coolness of Fall lettuce and mulch  beneath the Bradford Pear.  How quickly we drop back to  sleep after being swarmed with meat  and red-eyed wonder. Just months ago we were pulsed from our pillows and deposited on porches in morning dark where we had no trouble believing  in the world’s grating hallelujah and another world sucking on our roots  beneath our very feet. Come now,  do we really need to wait  another seven years?  

SHOOTS My wife and I uncovered a family  of small things nesting in our box spring,  while a good friend and his  can’t get one small thing to grow  for more than a month. Last Spring  I pulled up the Basil sprouts  and young Oregano and faithfully watered the weeds for weeks. What grows  and what doesn’t both happens  in the dark, and it’s someone’s work  to decide what gets past that.  Past that, we’re left with an itch and a hope unbearable as cradled air that they can see in the dark enough  to know just what they’re plucking up. 

LUMBER RUN They know what they’re doing, putting the box of shims by the door on your way out. This isn’t their first time watching  someone set out to build something with the long afternoon of their life,  that slight swagger behind the lumber cart, bright denial for someone to help load it in the back of the truck.  Their “see you soon” is weathered,  pressure-treated from the footsteps of those who always come limping  back. What they don’t carry, though,  for all their expertise kept stacked on pallets in the back, is just the piece you’ll need when the porch light flicks on. That one belongs to you already, the scrap in your very own  garage you kept out of a vague intuition that what solves the problem  is cast aside and never carried on the shelves.