Sunday night at Gravel Hill Baptist Church,
the men’s quartet in white button-down shirts,
matching red vests, black bolo ties,
the tenor’s hair slicked back higher than Mount Pisgah,
old man Ritchie plays the guitar and Bonnie Minger’s
at the upright piano, her boom chucks lead them into
“Operator, Information, Give Me Jesus on the Line.”
Half the cars in the parking lot have a bumper sticker,
“Pray for me – I drive Route 7.”
Judy and Gordon, Nazarenes, sit on their front stoop,
listen from across the road.
In everyone’s kitchen, work boots and metal lunch pails
wait for Monday morning.
Oil wells out back of Clutter’s Ridge teeter totter their load;
their burn off tinges the evening air with something like sulphur.
The ferry boat down at Doc’s Sohio wanders the river
all day, to Sistersville, West Virginia, and back again,
like a second cousin once removed, not sure who it’s kin to.
Humid stars graze overhead, their wool heavy and damp.
In Johnson’s Run, under each holy limestone rock,
crawdads green with waiting, and overhead,
pawpaw trees wild with grapevines.
At Aunt Leona’s, her pressure cooker
cradles green beans and bacon and a pinch of sugar.
Its gauge rocks steady as the King James’ Version of anything,
the water pump on the porch stubborn as an old man’s elbow.
Phyllis will bring down a bowl of pimento cheese spread
and Wonder bread buns.
Her cocker spaniel has eyes black and round
as the preacher’s overcoat buttons.
Way back in the holler squats an abandoned house.
Metal clothes hangers clang in the fickle wind
like ancient bells punished for failing to warn
the town about a coming apocalypse.
In the shed, a half rotten trunk heaves with baby mice,
pink and white as little ghost blooms.
The bobcat that hunts Hannibal Ridge
wants to translate the mythologies of the moon,
knows there’s a skeleton,
years before it’s unearthed,
buried under the old grape arbor.
No one else notices the purple skins tight with secrets,
the grapes winey with tears.
Colette Tennant has three books of poetry: Commotion of Wings, Eden and After, and Sweet Gothic. Her book, Religion in The Handmaid’s Tale: a Brief Guide, was published in 2019 to coincide with Margaret Atwood’s publication of The Testaments. Her poems have won various awards and have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes along with being published in various journals, including Prairie Schooner, Rattle, Southern Poetry Review, and Poetry Ireland Review. Colette is an English and Humanities Professor who has also taught art in Great Britain, Germany, and Italy.
Click the covers below for more information about Colette Tennant’s poetry:
**Featured image credit: “October in Pike County, Ohio” from Don O’Brien, Wikimedia via Flickr, CC 2.0
