Big Thicket Requiem, Part 2

Painting by Stephanie Shuler


Big Thicket Requiem, Part 2


II.

Blacktop yellow stripe down the middle
they dragged a living man down
down until they dragged a dead man
broken into pieces


on either side, tall pines, planted
every ten years pulped after growth
tall enough to mill the paper
to publish the obituary


these woods have a dead man in them
broken shredded into black asphalt
head legs torso scattered like needles
deep woods whisper here


a thousand people drive over red specks
spread droplets of raging tears but
a dead man's dying cannot roll dark
thicket into shining light


H. Palmer Hall

Posted over on the Literary World of H. Palmer Hall
(Originally published in RATTLE, Reprinted in The Red Palm
a revised version with five other parts appeared in Palo Alto Review and
American Diaspora, an anthology from University of Iowa Press)