"Impaled" by Kristin Fouquet

2 Poems


Knuckle Bear 4

Granny tune my heart
With her kitchen song.
Run from us, God, run from us,
I think, when Papaw line a rabbit
With his twenty-two, but
How I like barbcue.
Papaw has two trucks
He drive whichever crank first.
He say come on Knuckle Bear.
I load a truck with chair.
They play cards in the house,
Beard men with guns.
Outside I hear hawgs snuffling.
The wind is dead.
Papaw say bust that fucker.
I knock him out front door
Backwards off the porch.
Papaw scoop the table money,
Give me a quarter.
Granny tune my heart
With Rock and Ages
After we go fucker bustin.




Knuckle Bear 5

Papaw say don’t never live past yourself.
He fell and hit his dead.
Papaw say older you get
More you like old stuff.
Granny say they bury him in the bone orchard
Where he waits for Jesus.
Some day I go check to see if he there.
Papaw never good at waiting.
Papaw cuff me and say Knuckle Bear
You slow as a day at work.
Then cousin Ettie Lay say Knuckle Bear
You dumber than pig shit.
She like me, put her hand down my pants
Behind the barn while I watch the bull
Lick grain and snot from his nose.
Then I say wee, she let go and laugh.

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A past winner of the Jim Harrison Award for contributions to baseball literature, Tim Peeler has also been a Casey Award Finalist (baseball book of the year) and a finalist for the SIBA Award. He lives with his wife, Penny in Hickory, North Carolina, where he directs the academic assistance programs at Catawba Valley Community College. These poems are from a forthcoming book, his thirteenth.

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Kristin Fouquet photographs and writes from lovely New Orleans. Her photography has been widely published in both online journals and in print: magazines, chapbook and book covers, and CDs. Her preferences are fine art photography, street photography, and the occasional portrait. Visit her virtual abode at the web address http://kristin.fouquet.cc