Arson
Tires up to his elbows, the old man
rode his tractor all the way to the
end of our road, turned right off
728 and rolled past the empty
field that used to hold tobacco
with its long leaves green and
broadly wrinkled. He wound along
the pond, sinking into itself, mud
covering all the snapping turtles,
and up the hill with its blind curve,
past the cattle penned on red dirt,
by the stand of trees that marked
the beginning of our property where,
if the wind was down, you could hear
tires on gravel from a mile back
standing outside our house. Some
minutes after he completed this
uninvited visit to impress upon
our mother the wisdom of needing
a man to live – to do right by her
children, to understand what can and
can’t be owned under God, and by
whom–and having been refused,
he made the journey in reverse, passing
out of sight into the meadow ringed
with trees where deer and wild
turkeys lingered, and which was
set about, at that time, with great
round bales of hay turning silver
beneath the sun, at which point he
took his cigarette between two fingers
and sent it flying into one. As fire is
silent before it becomes uncontained
I was thankful to find it still smoking,
easy enough to put out, though
we could not shake the trespass of
that old man scorned and
the things of ours he tried to burn.
published in Appalachian Review, Volume 51, Issues 1 & 2: Winter/Spring 2023