Reunion Summit

Reunion Summit

A Jalapeño pepper
in a Savannah Churches
it bit my tongue
so sweet and hot.

I had just been transferred
from a nearby circus.
I didn't miss
what I'd never gotten.

I was soon to be
headed to the Courthouse
for another summit.
Stone gargoyles stared
in the village green.

I watched
daybreak approach
slowly
like clockwork.
I stared into
the crack of dawn.

The stars were red
and the night was swampy.
I crossed through the cemetery
and heard her clicking heels
on those streets of stone.

The constellations
seemed so foreign
observed obscure text
written in the stars.

In the morning
sunlight
cut over an eastern hill.
At the little church
a block over from Broadway.

The steeple of the church
framed us well
among a small group of people
as there on the steps
we burnt the document.

She mentioned some gibberish
about how our forefathers
were free now
but still
scrounging for bread.

Something about her spirit
deep golden and blue
her radiance
she was blonde in the sun.

The next day
at Rockville Lumber and Supply
in the shadows of the warehouse
I was kicked back
locked down on the job.

The electric hiss
spewing hydraulic steam
then the quiet
as it needles down on point
then the rattling
of the hammer pole.

The shimmering
little tin valley
across the lot to the wood shop
packed over with asphalt
and white concrete.

Watching
through
the shimmering haze
of sunlight.
Always some commotion
and the arrival
of unexpected customers.

In the field of stone
I saw the grass
then I saw the lions
in a surreal daydream
I hallucinated a lion parade.

The heat and the haze
was glowing
the mimosa blooms
were wilting.
Old Country tune on McLeod's radio
weeping willows
and the sad story of Ms. Kibbles.

The holiday meeting
had gone well
I was back riding shotgun
making deliveries
in the lumber truck.

-Will Dockery (Summer 1981)