Southern Fried Weirdness | Southern Speculations

Scavengers

by Lisa M. Bradley

South Texas is a scavenger society--
We hoard corrugated tin and cinder blocks
as zealously as our family secrets,
rusty rumors welded into place
with white-hot superstitious whispers.
We clutch bundles of barbed wire and kitchen twine
close to grotto hearts embedded with
Fanta bottle caps and chipped children's marbles.
We stake our dead to the bleached-bone earth
with picket fence crosses and roadside plastic rose wreaths,
beer can votives and bicycle chain rosaries,
invoking supermarket saints to leave heaven empty.
We cobble together paths of broken glass
and then we wonder why our feet bleed.