02/12/2011

Sky full of biplanes
fence patched

the beagle tests
nine acres of straw-brown grass

dreams only of red dirt
to kick back like buckshot

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I wrote this poem at my parents’ house, which is directly opposite the Roy E. Ray Airport, a “good country airport,” where the neighbors fly biplanes and ultralights. Anyone who says that the red dirt roads of the south are just a cliché has never had to wash rust-red clods from the feet of a runaway beagle after she’s returned home.

BIO:

Jesseca Cornelson is an assistant professor at Alabama State University. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Salamander, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, The Other Journal, and Willows Wept Review. She lets her hound dogs run free more than she should.
MORE POEMS:

11/11/2009
'Winter in the Dry Counties', William Logan


05/12/2010
'Sandstone', Heather Hamilton


03/20/2013
'Midnight', Mike Sukach