These three poems are part of a collaborative book project called Mississippi that involves my poetry and the photography of the Delta photographer Maude Schuyler Clay. It’s important to know that the poems are in a variety of Mississippi voices–all fictive but all based in various environmental difficulties that besiege the state: periodic flooding of the Mississippi River; depleted soil and therefore poor harvests, plus massive deforestation; poverty. Yet the beauty and cultural richness and complexity of the state are also very real.
[We’re mostly headed for hell]
Ann Fisher-Wirth
We’re mostly headed for hell now the devil’s come among us. No point reading the papers, watching the news, just got to lay up for the family best I’m able. My third wife, Jeanie, she’s got this little girl, bucktooth as a chipmunk, needs some orthodontia. Wood’s rotten on the porch, like to be some job getting that replaced. Squirrels at the wiring in the attic. And I still got to be paying child support to the deep-dyed bitch who run me out, and the other one, Bonnie, good Christian woman, good cook too, but she didn’t take to doin the dirty. Well what do you think?—couldn’t help it none after Jeanie leaned over me, holding my jaw while the doc pulled that molar. Soil’s poor, too much rain, no rain, cotton used to be good, but sparse this year no matter how you spray it—and now I’m up against selling off more timber. Loblolly pine. Grows fast, good money, but even it don’t thicken like it used to. Heart pine? thing of the past. Can’t find that good hard sappy wood no more, it’s all cut down, like my grandma’s house was built of, even the termites couldn’t chew it.
[Like to drove me crazy]
Ann Fisher-Wirth
Like to drove me crazy
the cicadas in the privet and pecan trees
whupping up their little motors
all those nights
like beating the eggs for angel cake
I’d churn that eggbeater
faster and faster
till my hand got tired let it fall back quiet
then oh shoot eggwhites not stiff enough
so here we go again
and them crickets
chirping and buzzing all silvery and tinkly
summer nights as I laid by Bobby
one day he flipped his ATV
hurt his foot couldn’t drive no longer
so we retired
bought a cabin out by Sardis
but we were happy in that house
fan stirring sheets damp
he’d lick the salt right off my neck
all those bugs clamoring up
like love
[You may not have these cushions]
Ann Fisher-Wirth
You may not have these cushions
they are the ones my dying aunt chose for me
you may not have these spoons
though they tarnish in my drawer
or the blankets
that I mended
look at this pretty blue plate
with the flowers
and the bird
look at this cast iron skillet
…
oh, go ahead rise up
smear the boards
soak the house
until it buckles until it cracks
and whoosh
with a sigh and lip lip lip
it subsides
Don’t you know we’ll get away
don’t you know we’ll leave by boat