Public Republic

Sheri L. Wright

Photo: “Who Are You?” by Sheri L. Wright

He set Beargrass Creek in flames with stolen whiskey,
something about fire-water, making a point,
daring anyone to try and drink it now,
but all he got was six months in jail
for vandalizing public property.
He told the judge that was the funniest thing,
calling it a creek,
that it wasn’t really a creek anymore,
just a stream of cowboy piss and run-off from the stockyards.
That got him another thirty days for contempt.
Kenny said, by that reasoning,
he had 27 years and 16 days worth of contempt
to do time for. Or is it seventeen days? He’s not sure
since his mother’s womb dragged the months
reluctant to his coming
until the sun and moon split the seam
of midnight open for his birth,

and the doctor noted the minute
as if it was an empty beer can
clattering around on the floorboard,
tossed it to the nurse
to dispose of on the birth certificate –
that’s a good girl..

His time has been broken
like that damn clock he smashed to pieces,
kicked its guts across the floor
so no one could tinker them back together
to tell him he belongs to the endless measure of hands
that circles his moments like vultures

till the day the sun was a star falling into his eyes
when he ran his truck through a flat-bed
that breached the center line,
scattering his sense like broken-glass across the road,
left wind-swept onto the shoulder.

We saw him once or twice
picking cans off the road,
rattling through town like spare change
fallen through a hole in someone’s pocket,
someone who didn’t bother over lost coins.

Sheri L. Wright
114 South Bayly Av #1
Louisville, KY 40206
kasperfriend@yahoo.com