Collected Hearths

After “Some Feel Rain” by Joanna Klink 

I

Some see a long coarse braid
in its place between shoulder blades.
I see a man. Slung over in a rusty truck,
asleep against the back seat,
after he whispered for whiskey bright
the night before. 
He’s still there,
heat-cheeks, collecting cash from my father
until I am picked up, and my
seat is warm. 
 

II

Some see my father
walking sick, his ghost braid--

each year in a length
kept in a bag somewhere at his wife’s home. 

III

Some see thorns embedded in a 
boy’s foot, a new rainforest cleat
for a four-hour walk
to see a baby girl.  

When they fall out, 
some see miracle. 
 

IV 

Some see slim Gustavo playing futbòl at Powderhorn,
making rainbows in the air, twirling maradonas
left and right. Young white teeth.
A tiny rat tail braid.

Some see Mexico a week 
before the Dream Act. 

Some see blurred,
lines, where drug cartels
dote on new striplings.

V

Why riot and teeth, poetry, and poached
eyes are all I have.

Why their hearths
have already made it 
so far
from beside me.

Ari Tison is a local writer and the winner of the Vaunda Micheaux Nelson Award for her verse novel. She is the editor for Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop's Broadside Competition in collaboration with the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. She has her MFAC from Hamline University and works for their Creative Writing Programs. Her poems and short works have been published in Yellow Medicine Review and Rock & Sling. She teaches at North Central University and the Loft Literary Center. She also enjoys painting and lives in St. Paul with her husband.