Why I’ve Not Cut Down The Yes Ma’am Bush
Dead aunts live in its persistence–
Evadell, Varnelle, Lorabell–
dead aunts, and a grim remembrance
of the perfect switch.
Long tendrils
shoot straight up, thin, limber enough
to circumscribe a leg,
depend
from gravity, wag in mild wind,
decline, creep the packed ground,
smudge-green
leaves, gray runners snaking over
red clay harder than the cadence
of punishments I remember . . . .
You gonna mind?
Yes ma’am.
You gonna listen?
Yes ma’am.
You gonna do that again?
Yes ma’am.
I can’t begin to name this bush,
but what's the point, cutting it down,
poisoning the stumps, or rooting
it out, when it just resurrects,
born again to fall again, and
creeps the footpath, poisonous,
thorny, come-to-Jesus money
from home some sixty years too late?
About the Author: Samuel Prestridge, a post-aspirational man, lives and works in Athens, Georgia. His book A Dog’s Job of Work is forthcoming from Sligo Creek Publishing. He is currently an Associate Professor of English at the University of North Georgia. His children concede that he is, generally, an adequate father.
Image Credit: Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes “Study of a bush, plants and rocks next to the lake Nemi” Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
As It Ought To Be 