Issue 4:1 I Poetry I Kelli Rush

Three Poems by Kelli Rush

Selected from “Dixie Classic”

Biggest Pumpkin

O, blessed big one,

burning like a low sun

and buoyant,

Benedictine,

most honored, answered,

abbot-old,

before you, I, abounding,

am the prayed for,

am the pardoner,

am softened seed,

am water…

I abide, I break, receive.

In the Car

And in the seat

slunk down his eye

is glinting pink his eye

is spinning like a Ferris wheel and he

is smashing cigarette
into the fat the round

the fuzzy planet-green and purple
elephant I picked myself
he let me, he

is flicking sparks

and up they whirl

and out the window, he

barks instead of talks:

the whole damn place

is trashy, he.

The lambs were folded

in the hay and gray

and soft as prizes

and the barn was bright

and now the dark
is cloaky coming in

and I will smother, no,

I wanted us to stay

and see the fireworks and

the lambs made little bleats

like my voice like

sometimes his

Brass Horn

Makes apple-butter sound,

cow brown, barn warm,

mountain worn and mournful, mounding

like a crop, each note a nut,

each nut a round and wrinkled psalm.

O sing, o save,

swell into praise, be prayerful,

be burlap fat and plentiful,

be raised, and move the stars.