Kultura

Ah yes, brave ass, it’s thy kultura, or kulchur
as Pound spelled the things that didn’t live up
to the names they carried like a sack of wheat
to one threshing floor the strong men manned
never forgiving thy murder, father Abraham,
so sayeth my father named for the other father
on the horse singing, playing his Spanish guitar
where guns crackled in the pine, mountainclad
distance and greatgrandmother loved with him
in Huntington or Mansfield or the other town
with one hotel, one dining room, one free room
to make a child that died and killed his mother.

Manuel never returned after hearing the news.
Places in those hills anyone who kills goes free.

(21 December 2012)

copyright 2012 by Floyce Alexander