Poetry By Christie Beckwith

Christian Collins CC




Small-Town Expressionism in Yellow

Small-town roads in Western Pennsylvania birth curves / surprises / a waddle of ducks / a webbed stampede. / Deer rest on tar beds / their tongues lick white-dotted fur / pause / ears perk at the screams of rubber. / A vehicle swerves / misses them by a hair / leaves a souvenir of burnt tracks. Strangers pass through / don’t brake / for the view. 

This place / a detour of orange signs / Amish buggies / dead animals / asphalt plucked potholes / construction crews / three-quarters of the year. /  The stall of winter / fixing freeze / won’t slow / impatient automobiles. /  Lackadaisical cops / only stop for donuts / the road expands / hibernates. Drivers bristle past / the broom-swept fields / our gilded Midwest / corn crops / houses abutted by two story barns. / Junk car rust / sprinkles the untrimmed grass.
 
Outside we look like Americana / the definition of blessed / a wildflower wave of memaws & papaws / their marigold doors / welcome the shrill of new grandbabies / every long-lost cousin to their lemonade stoops /  say can you smell what the neighbors are cooking? 

Who owns this story? / The 18-year-old girl? / The drive-by stop sign? / Her last ochre sunrise? / Her broken neck? / Her plug-pulled parents? 
The news coverage / a scantily clad story /a two-dimensional intersection/ attempt to make palatable / a t-boned teenager. 

She was survived / or not / by her mother &  father.  Her  death / a reunion with her older sister.  / Tragic pair / eternal adolescents / paint tattles the road / where nothing much happens / until something  happens.

I watch my mother / study the sculptured loss / on their mother’s face. / The art says what she cannot / goodbye / to her second /  then only /  daughter. The guttural why / a howl / opened toward the sky / her mouth / a hearse. /  The wail of lament / her arched back / face wide / painted grief / the  spilled acrylic / realistic journalism no mother wants to read about / much less live.

Their father tried to breathe / for them both. / His rescue breaths exhausted / their mother’s stridor sighs / for 20 years. Their mother’s  last beat/ on New Year’s Eve / a brake / a halt /an exhale / she expired / in the kitchen/ on the floor. / Her final / invitation / the same as her first / calls / for them to come / inside when it got dark.




Christie is a writer, poet, and freelance editor at Meraki Press. Her work explores themes of grief, growing up in Western Pennsylvania, and reconciliation. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, three sons, and two dogs. She has most recently been published in The Purposeful Mayo, and you can find more of her work on Instagram @TheHardWayPoems.
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