Tony Reevy
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Abandoned Farm, Virginia Creeper Trail
The burley money vanished
with the allotment,
the kids moved to town.
Green hills closed
on Ma, Pap and their
home. So they took in four white
kittens—a whole litter.
For years, those cats haunted
the trail by the house.
Coyotes moved in, got
them—Pap went to his rest.
Ma spends her last days
at the facility in Abingdon,
clasping, unclasping fingers,
reaching for, petting, ghosts.
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Senior associate director of the Institute for the Environment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Tony Reevy is a graduate of North Carolina State University, UNC-Chapel Hill and Miami University. He is a David P. Morgan Award winner (2006) and a Pushcart Prize nominee. His previous publications include poetry, non-fiction and short fiction, including the non-fiction books Ghost Train! and O. Winston Link: Life Along the Line, and the poetry chapbooks Green Cove Stop, Magdalena, Lightning in Wartime, and In Mountain Lion Country. His first full book of poetry, Old North, was published by Iris Press in 2013. He resides in Durham, North Carolina with wife, Caroline Weaver, and children Lindley and Ian.
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