28 April 2009 | Vol. 9, No. 1
Cousin Charles
I don't know how he does it, even how he
walks or holds a pool cue, as angry as he is.
Mine's like his scar,
but the footprint is the shape of a horse-hoof stamped into my back and chest,
both sides.
The dead, the gone. Two things overlapping,
and something slapping back with a wet hand—
a memorable prettiness
of the orchard,
or a blue cloth full of cookies, rubber-banded at the top:
it must be possible to make decisions out of something else than fear, to
substitute something for it.
His hips are like mine, the stable fulcrum as he stretches, pops his back,
lies like a soldier in bed, chin up.
About the author:
Collier Nogues was recently the Fishtrap Writer-in-Residence in Wallowa County, Oregon, six hours east of her home in Portland. Her first book will be published in Spring 2011 by Four Way Books, and poems of hers have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Pleiades, jubilat, Barrow Street, Washington Square, and Third Coast.
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by Collier Nogues at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 9, No. 1, where "Cousin Charles" ran on April 28, 2009. List other work with these same labels: poetry.
