Ross White
Illness Narrative
Because I am horrible,
I don’t care about your illness narrative.
I am sick myself. Of myself. & so magnolia
hurls its white blossoms toward spring,
& so the weevils stain the cotton
with their young. Here, a new scarf,
a crude wooden figurine of a long-nosed troll.
My lungs are dark & stringy, contaminated
by the nearby, listless heart. & so fishermen
wrench pollock from the sea & walleye
from the river, & so pails fill with milk.
Tell me a story that doesn’t end
in senseless trauma. I don’t care
what you have to go through
to conjure it. & so the godwits
thrust their bills into the black shore,
& so the grackle’s black feathers
stain blue skies seeking a friendly branch.
It is easier to invent than to listen.
Through the window, I see the world
wondering how to stun us all
with its magnificence but everywhere
the wounded are walking & talking.
& so the anchors find the waiting seabed,
& so the moon rides up on its dark chariot.
Tell me that story, the one where night
lifts its lesser stars & strokes them
like pets, & the incensed sun lashes
its reflection to a hunk of rock
revolving around earth. & so
all shadows will be reminders, enough
sometimes to make me feel loved.
Capital Gains
A mule drags his saddle into a canyon,
riderless. Habit’s kicked in. He’s a creature
whose dull edges follow rules. Walk
this path. Trot with the whistle. Be kind
to children. The Colorado sunset rakes
his hind like a plow across a soybean field.
Heat settles into evening like an uninvited guest.
Every morning he descends into the canyon
burdened by tourists, lowers his head to a pail
of lukewarm water as they pout at the scenery,
eat egg salad sandwiches, and splash in the cool ford,
then carries them dripping and tired back up
the canyon shelf. Each evening he descends
riderless, a rope in his mouth, to sleep
where low winds coddle certain mules,
making giants of them. He’s never one
of those mules. Those mules and burros
gallop, loaded with sixteen men on a single saddle,
along the canyon walls, make eight trips
an afternoon, they bite through bridles
and their bulk snaps the billet straps
if they choose to take deep breaths.
He’s more the kind of mule who lopes
the path so often he can see his hooves
wearing deeper the dusty outline of years.
He looks ahead to a pasture, an orchard
or rushing brook. The days have to add up
to something more than a weak breeze
through these same saguaros. Other mules
work the ledges of the opposite side
of the canyon. He sees them, daily, amble
up the canyon-face, down the canyon-face,
their riders, like his, dressed in garish patterns,
flowers and colorful birds he does not recognize.
Sometimes on the other side of the canyon
he sees a familiar mule rise to the crest
and a new mule descend, and he thinks
of apples, of soothing summer rain.
Ross White is the author of two chapbooks, How We Came Upon the Colony (Unicorn Press, 2014) and The Polite Society (Unicorn Press, 2017). His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, New England Review, Poetry Daily, Tin House, and The Southern Review, among others. His manuscript in progress, Guilt Ledger, was selected by Edward Hirsch to receive the 2016 Larry Levis Post-Graduate Stipend from Warren Wilson College. He teaches creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Visit his website: www.rosswhite.com
Return to September 2018 Edition
Because I am horrible,
I don’t care about your illness narrative.
I am sick myself. Of myself. & so magnolia
hurls its white blossoms toward spring,
& so the weevils stain the cotton
with their young. Here, a new scarf,
a crude wooden figurine of a long-nosed troll.
My lungs are dark & stringy, contaminated
by the nearby, listless heart. & so fishermen
wrench pollock from the sea & walleye
from the river, & so pails fill with milk.
Tell me a story that doesn’t end
in senseless trauma. I don’t care
what you have to go through
to conjure it. & so the godwits
thrust their bills into the black shore,
& so the grackle’s black feathers
stain blue skies seeking a friendly branch.
It is easier to invent than to listen.
Through the window, I see the world
wondering how to stun us all
with its magnificence but everywhere
the wounded are walking & talking.
& so the anchors find the waiting seabed,
& so the moon rides up on its dark chariot.
Tell me that story, the one where night
lifts its lesser stars & strokes them
like pets, & the incensed sun lashes
its reflection to a hunk of rock
revolving around earth. & so
all shadows will be reminders, enough
sometimes to make me feel loved.
Capital Gains
A mule drags his saddle into a canyon,
riderless. Habit’s kicked in. He’s a creature
whose dull edges follow rules. Walk
this path. Trot with the whistle. Be kind
to children. The Colorado sunset rakes
his hind like a plow across a soybean field.
Heat settles into evening like an uninvited guest.
Every morning he descends into the canyon
burdened by tourists, lowers his head to a pail
of lukewarm water as they pout at the scenery,
eat egg salad sandwiches, and splash in the cool ford,
then carries them dripping and tired back up
the canyon shelf. Each evening he descends
riderless, a rope in his mouth, to sleep
where low winds coddle certain mules,
making giants of them. He’s never one
of those mules. Those mules and burros
gallop, loaded with sixteen men on a single saddle,
along the canyon walls, make eight trips
an afternoon, they bite through bridles
and their bulk snaps the billet straps
if they choose to take deep breaths.
He’s more the kind of mule who lopes
the path so often he can see his hooves
wearing deeper the dusty outline of years.
He looks ahead to a pasture, an orchard
or rushing brook. The days have to add up
to something more than a weak breeze
through these same saguaros. Other mules
work the ledges of the opposite side
of the canyon. He sees them, daily, amble
up the canyon-face, down the canyon-face,
their riders, like his, dressed in garish patterns,
flowers and colorful birds he does not recognize.
Sometimes on the other side of the canyon
he sees a familiar mule rise to the crest
and a new mule descend, and he thinks
of apples, of soothing summer rain.
Ross White is the author of two chapbooks, How We Came Upon the Colony (Unicorn Press, 2014) and The Polite Society (Unicorn Press, 2017). His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, New England Review, Poetry Daily, Tin House, and The Southern Review, among others. His manuscript in progress, Guilt Ledger, was selected by Edward Hirsch to receive the 2016 Larry Levis Post-Graduate Stipend from Warren Wilson College. He teaches creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Visit his website: www.rosswhite.com
Return to September 2018 Edition