The Bottle Tree
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- The Bottle Tree
Look, in lieu of shade-granting leaves, here is cobalt, green,
and lion-colored glass to quell ghosts of feet-don’t-fail-me-now,
ghosts of if-you’re-black-stay-back, specters of inglorious
slaving ships and wolfish phantoms:
Brother, passerby, cast an eye, for Deacon Killian’s austere
lowcountry branches are adorned with sun-washed empties:
(Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Chardonnay, Manischewitz . . .),
to alert Mount Pleasant’s lost or faithless even fly-by-night evil
can be tamed, Lord have mercy, into usable beauty. [End Page 17]
Cyrus Cassells, Professor of English at Texas State University (San Marcos), is author of five collections of poems, The Mud Actor, Soul Make a Path Through Shouting, Beautiful Signor, More Than Peace and Cypresses, and The Crossed-Out Swastika (Copper Canyon Press, April 2012). His Still Life with Children, translations from the poet Francesc Parcerisas, is forthcoming from Tupelo Press. He has also published in a number of periodicals, including Boston Review, AGNI, Ploughshares, and Callaloo. For his poems he has won a number of awards, including the William Carlos Williams Award and the Lambda Literary Award. He lives in Paris, France, and Austin, Texas.
