Droughtgrief

Droughtgrief by Angela Williamson Everything exists within the skin on a hot night in a housepermeable by bugs, open windows begging for rain. Pricked by mosquito, I itch, specific to wrist or to the top of the thigh,or the heel of the hand, hard as armor. Nails scratch but cannot penetrate the subdermal deposit of poison. Sleep floats meas if in scalding water. Years ago, evenings like these, we chased the cows into the barn, made the water hot for their pre-milkwashing, set shoulder to flank and used rags to wipe clean the smooth skin of teat and udder. Fans sucked air out the widewindows but did not cool. Legs pasted with hay, thighs kissing, sweat dripping slick beneath my breasts, I learnedto discern relief in finger-wide strips of skin, ran hoses on my ankles, chilled my blood to pain. In the summerswithout rain the waiting hung over us like an old fashioned scythe nailed to a barn wall for nostalgia’s sake but no lessterrifying in its power to drop darkness. At stake? Bankruptcy, losing the whole damn farm. I longfor those days, when I lived without hesitation, knew the cows by touch, by shape, by the puff of breath or the swingof head, knew them by the heat they threw, the teat long or small, hot for a mouth or a hand. After milking, my fatherlay in the grass wiping away mosquitoes as swallows swooped over us, come down with the evening and what dew the skycould spare us, sipped up by the corn. I wait the sky’s cool hand to come rest on my forehead. I am lost, but for the drought,I am homeless, but for the heat and the solace of night come without rain. Poetry Home Art by Abby Miller