Reedy Whimpers
Originally appeared in Broadside, Number 6, March 1991
The reedy whimpers of houses caught by hillsides
Fog down the loam and crust of farm scatterings
Purple with scarves of webbed voices
Like termites singing down a hallway of hymnals
Their bristled ticking afire with chloroform
The harmonica chords of houses that could be boats or effect corpses
The ping of their throats jostled across rocks like sheaves of crickets
Or clouds of accordions funneled through chimneys and porch gaps
To pour their gasping dreams upon the Ozarks
As the wind curls around stovepipes
Ingratiating its form to furniture and photographs
That sit without questioning the ice that will also caress them
When the pumpkins are hidden when the bellows are gone
David Thomas Roberts (October 25, 1989)
