Spring in The Thumb
A Keystone Light box in the window filling the space beside the AC unit. Shit, the place needs siding, a fresh coat of paint on the garage door, a new roof put on.
I’ll be working, pinching pennies all summer. But today snow is through thawing, yards turning, sprouting green. Out back my mutts roam the field,
noses down, searching for dead critters to roll around in. I walk the dirt road toward the bend in the Belle River. Tackle box in hand, I sit on the flat rock,
thread a hook through a nightcrawler, and drop a lure into the slow current. Overhead you might expect new growth birdsongs filling the air, but there’s not.
Grape vines choke this river. Heavy brush weaves together like dreamcatchers along both banks, mud holding the landscape quietly in place. I fiddle fuck with fishing line
in my teeth, rigging different spoons, looking for something that’ll flash in this dirty water. There’s rustling where the creek intersects the river, a doe and two fawns
looking for some place to bed down. I watch the newborns stumbling along the pitch of the riverbank, momma doe dropping her head, taking care to guide
their spotted bodies with her neck. I set the hook when my line jumps, glimpse a silver fish break the surface, then watch my lure land on the riverbank. The doe turns
her head toward me, body tense and ready for what’s next. Our eyes meet, gazing through the thin shadows dimming this landscape. I light up a Marlboro, let smoke create movement between us.
When A Rural Woman Gets Mean
Terry Road Martha put a hurting on me, boy.
I came home late one night, about six in the morning,
and my phone was dead and she’d been calling me
and, brother, I was piss drunk, you better believe it.
Don’t get fooled by long wavy hair and freckled
cheekbones, she threw hands as sure as any man.
You see a rural woman get mean, that’s something you don’t forget.
You see a rural woman sitting on the front porch swing,
cigarette between her fingers, red rings around her eyes
when you pull in the driveway. You see a rural woman
wearing nothing but shorts and one of your work shirts,
titties bouncing haphazard, gait deliberate stomping
barefoot across gravel, nothing between you and her
but air and four-letter words and that last prayer you can muster
because you’re fucked up and your head is pounding
and beagles are barking in their kennel because even they know
you’re fucked. And above you there’s nothing
but gray clouds, a light misting of rain coming down, a dim pink
haze from a dawn you don’t want to see. All you want to see
is the back of your own eyelids, because it’s Sunday
and you’re staring down the barrel of another sixty hour week
starting first thing tomorrow morning. And you’ve got pressure
at the beltline, skin clammy, sweat on your forehead, beads
on your upper lip and you know a beer shit is coming.
Duder you’re going to hit that toilet like lightning on a lake,
but not before Martha has her way with you. And you try
walking past her, but god damn she pokes you with a lit cigarette
and fuck it smarts and she uses your full name like she’s your mother,
for Christ’s sake. And you can’t hardly believe it but of course it’s
your own damn fault. And even if you were in the state of mind
to produce words, it’s not like you’d be able to talk your way out of this shit.
It’s taking an iron will. You’re clenching your asshole so tight
your low back starts burning because you know if you shit your pants
standing in the driveway while Martha’s motherfucking you, while roosters
are crowing and turkey buzzards are circling high above the treeline,
while farmer Fred and the good lord God and all the euchre-playing ghosts
of your ancestors up in heaven are watching, brother, you know
you’ll never live that down.
Return to Nature
Jeff Thomas is a poet from The Thumb. His poems center his experiences working blue collar jobs and growing up in rural southeast Michigan. Entering his second year studying in Eastern Washington University’s MFA program, Thomas is an instructor of creative writing and college composition, and serves as poetry editor of Willow Springs Magazine, as well as workshop leader for the Catalyst Community Workshop in Spokane. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Glacier, Blue Collar Review, Paterson Literary Review, and Speckled Trout Review.