South Cross (physical book)

South Cross collects poems written between 2013 and 2016 in Johnson City, TN and Athens, GA. Key themes include gardening, rural life, animal death, and transformation.

This listing is for a staple-bound chapbook with individually hand-drawn cover art. For an ebook version, see this listing.

Autumn as a Kind of Promise

The scaled, coiled rubber of a broken bicycle tire
has been lying by the road in a crumpled twist.

How a snake must hurt before she casts her skin.
How her eyes cloud over, her muscles ache.

It is not like a salamander, who lifts
new feet to the bank, and gasps, and turns

to see her face flame-red in the water.
It is waiting to be a snake, to unclench the bones

so much constrained, to feel each grain of dirt
pass under your belly. To be a cicada, to leave yourself

yourself, flying and singing. Sun and gutter water
daily alter the bicycle tire, piece by intangible

piece. Not for the last time, leaves turn flame-red
and brittle. Not for the last time, snakes and cicadas

find dark, closed places for winter.