Charcoal
- Charcoal
charcoal and paper did not diminish, made imagined features not on the page be real.
in all the natural light in the room i stood and caught my breath at the fields in his face . . . the sugar syrup of guitar string on his back.
i heard everything he sang to me come up off the wall in fifths, that chord . . .
well, he had a hat that reminded me of georgia
left arm bent like: whatever workwasi did itnowsweet womanlet me watch youcall mefrom the fence
everything he said in the natural light charcoal and paper did not diminish, made full like the july moon coming over the heat too much day left, not enough night to sleep in.
oh, but he could fill such blackness to brim over as cool rivers in the piedmont or a blanket of hills for the shudder in evening’s plumripe shoulders.
Works by Rachel Elizabeth Harding
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• Charcoal
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• Mercy
Rachel Elizabeth Harding, who received the M.F.A. in poetry from Brown University, is a candidate for the Ph.D. in Latin American history at the University of Colorado. During this academic year, she is in Salvador da Bahia doing research on nineteenth century Brazil. Her poems and short fiction have appeared in The Langston Hughes Review, The Guadalupe Review, Chelsea, and Feminist Studies.
