Hobart

“Field of Burley tobacco on farm of Russell Spears, drying and curing barn in the background, vicinity of Lexington, Ky.,” Marion Post Wolcott, September 1940, FSA/OWI Color Photographs, Library of Congress.

He clucked his tongue, slapped the bull’s rump, and turneda herd of Angus, single file, through the narrow gapin the fence to the barn lot. He lingered by the tailgateof his pickup, smoked while the sky reeled icy cirrusover the fescue, and foretold the sheets of rain that, by mid-week,draped the blue hills and approached, the hay balessafe in the loft. He played the barn vents at curing timelike the stops of an instrument, and went on, cuppinghis hands around the life he’d inherited as if it were a flame.The cedars smoked their pollen into the blue air; a drought monthlit the shucks of fall, and he searched the sky’s empty bowlbut never saw the storm that, far beyond him, was purplinglike a bruise and taking everything he took for granted.

From “Tobacco Mosaic,” originally published in Dismal Rock (Tupelo Press, 2007), winner of the Dorset Prize. Reprinted by permission.