- Wild Indigo, Because
When rice was our nemesis and callous-making cotton,
and the onus of a Satan-hot tobacco
seemed to stain our very souls,
beyond the spirit-choking pest houses of Sullivan Island
(our Ellis Island), beyond the dust and ragtag
squalor of slave row, we found a dew-soaked,
purplish blue in the needed time—
imagine, in a siren patch
behind the blacksmith’s— a God-sent and doe-wild blue. [End Page 12]
Cyrus Cassells, a resident of Austin and Paris (France), is author of four books of poems: The Mud Actor, Soul Make a Path Through Shouting, Beautiful Signor, and More Than Peace and Cypresses. He is a professor of English at Texas State University, where he teaches courses in creative writing.