Leslie LaChance

Vesper                

            Tobby Hollow Lane ~ Dead of Winter

 

A day of dig and burn, rock and brush, and breaking blows
            til early twilight catches, yes
catches, and we sit ourselves down, stilled now
            in our creasy hills.
Detritus writes itself across the land in stories such as these:
            mystery metal in brown mounds
feed buckets, punctured
            curly old box springs
barbed wire wreaths
            coops and barns and last century’s
houses folding themselves down
            into lime and mud.
And us, only a bit tired.

Oh, St. Tobby of the Holler
            hear our prayer:
let our dogs be brave, the children hale
            and obedient
let the hens live long enough to lay
            dozens upon dozens
and the sheep to lamb
            again.
When we take ax to ice
            let the spring flow through unto summer,
waters ever sweetening the root.  





~



St. Tobby among the Yard Birds


  and Severn Burgess will fight his birds still —
one does not keep so many and not do

            oh,  let the law try —
his yard remains a shivering iridescence of  Claret
            Bantam        Rock 

spur and sickle    gold hackle
            stout hock

one could doubt a man
            who cannot find beauty in a rooster    and music
in the cluck and fuss of hens
            or who will not see Mystery’s finger in it
when we break the breakfast egg
            find the spot of blood quickening in bright yolk
                        and eat



~


This Way to Your Future Home


a shingled city house
on a hill, a fine view
of the glittering center, no —
a low floor in a high rise
and dog-walking in the dead
of winter, no —
a cottage just out
of bounds where
night shows up before
it comes to those in 
town, no — a gypsy
caravan on the isle
of cormorants, no —
a closet in a convent, 
one square shaft of light
by which you’ll kneel, no —
a silk pavilion in a green wood, no —
a treehouse, a tower, a boat
a rude hut, or pit, 
a ghat, a flame —

each strut through this museum
of your ambition
ends the same


~


Leslie LaChance's work has appeared recently in One Trick Pony and Number One. Her chapbook collection of poems, How She Got That Way, was published in 2013 as part of the quartet volume Mend & Hone by Toadlily Press. Originally from Northern Appalachia, Leslie has lived in Tennessee for the past two decades and currently makes her home in Nashville.


~


return to poetry                 home