Kelly R. Samuels
—
Fraught and Most Likely Fruitless
A Father a Daughter and a Search for Answers in a Toxic Town — The Washington Post
What was once used to grease our bike chains
likely kills. So, too: the creek and what flows
from the tap we now shun.
Bury the barrels
and this woman, here.
Place an earthen cap. Sing hymns
in melancholy tones.
What numbers there are cannot be
tied to beyond probable
and unnamed.
I’d set the green bean seeds gently
in the narrow trough he had made
and water with river water, not knowing.
Thirty-seven miles south, down one of those long ribbony roads,
there’s unsullied land, and the delicate blossom of apple.
Kelly R. Samuels is the author of the full-length collection All the Time in the World (Kelsay Books) and three chapbooks: Words Some of Us Rarely Use, To Marie Antoinette, from and Zeena/Zenobia Speaks. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee with work appearing in The Massachusetts Review, RHINO, Vassar Review, River Styx, and Court Green. She lives in the Upper Midwest.
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