Night Walk

 

Night Walk

A spotted fawn 
wades the muddy brook. 
As hooves sink into the muck, 
as I blink—holy shit!—she transforms 
into a human.
A girl. 

Barefoot. 
Her nostrils, black. 
Eyes like bullets in my light. 
Her flesh pale, spotted red-brown, 
fawn-color in reverse. 

One breath-cloud by me 
and she turns tail, 
lovely white flag of alarm 
and leaps across the babbling water,
climbs the steep mudbank
to the fallen tree. She’s gone. 

John’s daughter,
shot at school one year ago.
What I saw—should I tell him? 

…..

First published in Rat’s Ass Review thanks to editor Roderick Bates

Hear me:

 

@joecottonwood

Tuesday Without Appendix

Tuesday Without Appendix

Warm day for walkabout 
but Terry’s bundled in sweater, wool hat. 
His body feedback is fucked 
because on Christmas Day, o sing noël, 
Terry felt what he describes as 
an oncoming three-cubic-yard fart 
that never arrived. Instead came fever, 
weird heartbeats, a surgeon like 
a teenage girl slicing three holes in Terry’s belly, 
mucking around to pull out a ruptured appendix. 
She patched a few leaks, pipe and valve repair, 
then backfilled the ditch and covered it 
with asphalt. No, wait, that comes later. 
She sewed the incisions with thread.

Walking the streets of town we pause 
so Terry can remove sweater, hat, long johns
because he is smelly with sweat. 
All the anesthesia stored itself in his fat cells, 
and now it’s pouring out as perspiration, 
so Terry strips himself as townsfolk wave 
from passing cars and Terry in his undershorts 
waves back because everybody knows Terry, 
and Terry knows every crusty pipe 
that wanders under roads into their houses. 
He remembers blockages, geysers, 
disasters of mud with Terry at the center 
manning a backhoe, a jackhammer. He points 
to ghosts of ditches dug, valves replaced, 
memories of muck tied up with surgical thread.
No, wait, I mean with giant pipe wrench, 
bright red, and these are good memories, 
for Terry takes satisfaction. He brings water. 

A walk with a friend heals the soul. 
At the end Terry, a hugger, tells me 
not today—he can’t risk infection. 
So he dons sweater and woolen hat,
kick-starts his old Kawasaki and is gone 
in a buzz, no hug but no blockage, 
no geyser. Flowing freely. 

…..

First published in I-70 Review. Thank you editors Maryfrances Wagner, Gary Lechliter, and Greg Field.

Hear me: 

@joecottonwood

Three Story House

 

Three Story House

We muscled the heavy, squinted the fine, 
made decisions you can’t design on paper 
but only with fingers in the moment.

Old Walt coughing, Marlboro dangling, 
hand-rubbed the wainscot to a rosy glow.
His final job. Lungs.

Paul the preacher 
moonlighting as plumber
installed the water heater badly
distracted by divorce, a repossessed car,
now preaches on sidewalks 
outside the bars.

Frank the tile setter with eleven children
in a three-room shack received messages 
from space aliens through his penis, 
he told me. Level and true, they said, 
set your lines level and true. 
His quiet wife simply smiled, 
home-schooled every child.

Years later, spirits still here. 
Fingermarks. Marlboro ashes 
in wainscot oil. Hot water, a blessing. 
Frank’s tiles set level and true 
where we shower each day 
with pores open, naked. 

…..

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig  — thank you editor Hayley Mitchell Haugen 

Photo is of my own house, 1979. Look closely and you’ll see three workers. 

Hear me:

@joecottonwood

Atlantic City

 

Atlantic City

At a virgin age 
freshly growing fuzz
I’m walking the chilly beach— 
cross under a pier where 
smell is greenly wet. 
A man appears from among the pilings 
with a face like a chipmunk. 
He starts talking friendly 
so I respond sorta friendly with my voice 
cracking like a hee-haw donkey, and he says 
“Hey— you wanna go fuck around?” 

Two second pause as it dawns on me 
he means literally. He’s bigger
but I bet I’m quicker.
I say “No.” 

He steps away. 
It dawns on me he spends his days there
among the pilings like a hermit crab 
waiting, asking. 

And it dawns on me 
along this empty beach in winter 
so much is asked by the penis 
and I don’t know crap 
as surf keeps breaking, washing, 
breaking, teaching 
what I should learn.

…..

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig  — thank you editor Hayley Mitchell Haugen 

Hear me:

@joecottonwood

Casey Road

 

Casey Road

Tell no one of this road remote 
beneath modest mountain
between curtains of forest. 

A few tire track slots blocked by chains,
signs POSTED (a complete statement) 
driveways snaking into mystery.

Here’s a clearing, a garden of beans,
a cabin with roof of blue tarp. 
A gutted pickup. 
Folks who own little but a chunk of forest
if you can own the wandering deer, moose, bear. 

Two hours walking, no traffic not one. 
We old lovers gather trash, mostly beer cans, 
one cracked soccer trophy 
and oddly in dirt among wild daisies
a shiny silver padlock—no key. 

Pileated peckers gouge old trees; 
quail with frowns flee our footsteps. 
Shush of pines, rattle of maples, 
scent of blue sky,
distant rush of river rapids,
accidental brush of our hands,
clink of cans we find we carry.

This peaceful paradise of modest trash— 
will the rich unlock, award trophies 
to themselves? Please—tell no one.

…..

First published in The Russell Streur Anthology 

Hear me: 

@joecottonwood

Like Apples, We Survive

 

Like Apples, We Survive

Gray lizards with skeptical brow 
scuttle over stone chimneys from an age 
when men cleared land with ax and ox,
cleared a northern jungle for pasture, 
for orchard.

Boulders remain. Farms lost 
to deep snow, subzero nights, 
to grim gaze of starlight,
pastures reclaimed by conifer
while humans flee to town.

Left behind, hardy apple trees 
survive— surprise!— 
a delight to the hiker, 
a tongue-load of fructose 
amid this deep forest 
where to make a living
you must go on living.

…..

First published in Adirondack Anthology. Thank you Steve Kenworthy, editor

Hear me:

@joecottonwood

September brings…

 

September brings…

September brings a turtle to my bathroom 
sleeping on the glass-top scale 
where the digital gods 
declare her weightless 
as if an angel in a shell 
has alighted 

September brings hummingbirds 
carb-loading at yellow pinhole flowers 
on my red plastic feeder 
for a thousand mile journey 
to a tropical spa 

September brings turkeys 
de-bugging my garden 
while squabbling and gobbling 
like families evermore 

September brings adolescent deer 
graduating from fawn school 
shedding their spots for 
fashionable brown coats, 
flashing white tails 
like flinging caps to the sky

…..

Hear me:

@joecottonwood

San Gregorio General Store

 

San Gregorio General Store

How I love the young woman 
with slender fingers who takes 
my book from the shelf—blows 
dust from the top—bends to read 
my poems apparently near-sighted 
index finger following words. 
I feel caressed.

Her black leggings are torn, 
a train-track from ankle to thigh 
that I travel with my eye. A dancer? 
Sways her hips to the bluegrass band
but—Oh!—scarlet drops fall to the page. 
A gushing—her hand to her nose. 
“Crap!” she says runs to the bar
grabs a napkin drops the book 
among beer glasses and she runs out 
to the barbwire ranch land
pressing her nostril. 

How I love the swarthy man 
in cutoff jeans wide hat
looks like an off duty cowboy
on a stool at the bar
lifts the bloody ruined book 
pinches a quarter tween thumb and finger 
looks questioningly at old George
who shrugs and accepts. 

Limping favoring one hip
takes the book to a truck tailgate open 
watched by skeptical black angus 
under soaring red-tail hawk
where the young woman is waiting
with a grin and a bottle of wine. 
Together they read. 

…..

First published in Misfit Magazine. Thank you editor Alan Catlin.

San Gregorio General Store out in the ranchlands of coastal California has a little bit of everything and a whole lot of genuine character. A bar, live music, a few groceries, lots of hats and sweatshirts and coffee mugs,  exotic soaps — oh, and books (sometimes mine). It’s a special gathering spot for us locals and also seems to draw folks from all over the Bay Area. 

Hear me:

@joecottonwood

Resurrection, Body and Soul

 

Resurrection, Body and Soul

Before bedtime, shriveling old Edith 
sheds clothing to bathe 
while shivering old Josh 
bundled on Adirondack chair
watches, guards her. 

Join her if you want. Lake water 
jolts the heart, firms the flesh. 
Ask Edith.

Waves slosh. Owls call. 
Edith beckons, laughs. Come, jump. 
Don’t worry how you look 
because I look worse and anyway
it’s dark and nobody’s peeking. 

Swim among tiny fish and silent mussels,
a Milky Way of freckles, head to toe. 
Soft clouds of body hair.
Ghosts of breath from your lips. 
Loons howl—this air is haunted.
Your body, the lake, the night are all one.

Clears the brain, says Edith. 
Keeps you fresh, keeps you wild. 
Restores the soul each night—
to a saint, to a child.

…..

First published in Please See Me 
Thank you editor Steve Granzyk 

Hear me:

@joecottonwood

Three Things About Routine Surgery

 

Three Things About Routine Surgery

She is under the knife
inside a maze of hallways.
I could pace, read my phone 
and simply be near 
in case she suddenly dies or something
(in which case how could I help?)
but no. I walk into rising sun and sit 
at a cafe window where a mosquito hawk 
with hair-thin feet is testing the glass— 
up, down, a barrier, a desire.
Shut out. Like me.

She’s in good hands with shoulder sliced, 
a bloody hole where Dr. Eakin 
is drilling bone, implanting metal.
Afterwards, he will phone me, a brief call. 
I will phone our three children, grownups all.

I will be there bedside 
when her eyes will open, 
when a nurse will ask her 
to rate her level of pain 
on a scale of one to ten. 
She will quibble about the impossibility 
of assigning numbers, and then 
she will choose her favorite, “Three.” 
You’ll see. 

…..

First published in Please See Me 
Thank you editor Steve Granzyk 

Hear me:

@joecottonwood