It's Poems I Love Wednesday!

Enjoy this favorite by Frank Stanford, which you can find in his books Crib Death and The Light the Dead See.  I wish my college poetry teacher could read it out loud for you--I was quite taken aback when I heard him read it.  If you're alone (or not) I highly recommend you use your best poet voice and read it aloud:

Memory Is Like a Shotgun Kicking You Near the Heart

I get up, walk around the weeds

By the side of the road with a flashlight

Looking for the run-over cat

I hear crying.

I think of the hair growing on the dead, 

Any motion without sound,

The stars, the seed ticks

Already past my knees,

The moon beating its dark bush.

I take the deer path

Down the side of the hill to the lake,

Wade the cold water.

My light draws the minnows, 

Shines through them, goes dead.

Following the shore

I choose the long way home

Past the government camping grounds, 

And see where the weeds have been

Beaten down,

Hear the generator on the Winnebago purring.

The children of the tourists

Are under the wheels

Like a covered wagon.

They scratch in their sleep

Until they bleed.

When I get home

I drink a glass of milk in the dark.

She gets up, comes into the room naked

With her split pillow,

Says what's wrong,

I say an eyelash.