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AFTER RAIN / Joe Bolton Steam rises from the tapeworm road like dust raised by the wagons of the dead, and my sad father, whose eyes won't latch onto anything for long anymore, is already worrying at the rust still yet to form on things left out. The rain has plumped the corn up just enough for the raccoons to pillage it tonight, waddling through the dark to climb the stalks and ride the finest ears earthward. In the morning my father will stand mute under a mute sky, beside what only yesterday was his garden, and think, "Well, anyway, there are the flowers," and kneel down with a faith that has outlasted faith, trying to salvage what he can. The Missouri Review · 202 SPEAKING OF THE SOUTH: 1961 / Joe Bolton John F. Kennedy is alive and loved, and the moon remains Somewhat of a mystery, and suburbs and shopping malls Are mainly somebody's bad ideas, and you can still Speak of the South in a voice not wholly laden with loss. In Cadiz, Kentucky, my father pastors a Baptist church; My mother types up his sermons, visits the town's sick. Later, he'll leave the ministery to sell stocks and bonds, And she'll leave him for a journalist from Birmingham. Kennedy will be shot. People will yawn at the conquered moon. The South will sprout suburbs and shopping malls like tubercules. But for now, say it's December in Cadiz, Kentucky. Tinsel for Christmas drapes Main Street, flickering As dusk comes on cold with a blue wind off Lake Barkley. The poolroom and diner fill with smoke and the low voices Of men who carry inside them the stillness of the fields They hope to work for at least another twenty-five years. A boy kisses his girl goodbye and follows his visible breath Home, dreaming of her creamy thighs and a red Chevrolet. In the Wishy-Washy, the divorcee folds her stained whites. And in a yellow room of the Trigg County Hospital, 202 · The Missouri Review I am born—not yet named, nor equipped with the facility Of language, but squawling even then to make myself heard In a world that, as the twentieth century lurches To a close, will desire only a little peace and quiet. Joe Bolton THE MISSOURI REVIEW · 203 ...

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