virginia
i have met virginia.
she has sobbed drunk in my lap
at 3:53 AM on a rainy august morning
her tears rolling down my bones,
her trembling mouth cool on my skin.
pronounce she-nan-doah.
it means ‘daughter of the stars.’
virginia, your pickup truck broke down
night came, and it reached its
charcoal fingers down your throat
trying to find the
coal
and the
lumber
.
virginia, i’ll forgive you one day
and you’ll never forgive me
virginia. virginia. just try to listen when i say
around the break of evening
when your days turn golden and elderly
and become fossilized, hidden inside
a past we don’t want to remember
they never grew old.
they only grew tall,
like the oaks.
the child of dirt and water
cigarettes (but not the good ones)
how unfair is it to have no say
in the type of god that bleeds you dry.
Josephine Gawtry
“I have written since before I can remember–my poetry has always been a part of who I am, and I can’t imagine who I would be without it.”