Issue 3:2 | Poetry | Ron Rash

Two Poems by Ron Rash

The Retired Preacher

After years of negotiating

between his squabbling congregation

and the maker he prayed

was not in their image,

he tended instead his

flock of bantam gamecocks

full of strut and preen, hot

tempered as copperheads,

and on those Sundays

he grew nostalgic uncaged

two birds, let them peck

and scratch until feathers

swirled like drunk angels, flecks

of blood stained the grass—

and it all came back.

The Blooding

In winter wounds are easy

to track, no slap of briars

or feet-tangle, the thickets

hacked back by frost, a landscape

shed of green so each berry

of blood brightens where it falls

as it did that December

my father kneeled, palm pressed

on the flank as though to staunch

what life might yet pulse before

he offered what stained his hand,

what I closed my eyes to when

I felt my father’s callused

tenderness, could almost feel

the whorls on his fingertips,

even the blood I’d heard was

thicker than water this once

he raised up an open hand,

marked my face not in anger.