A Home in the Country by James Allen Hall

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend October 16, 2014   A Home in the Country   James Allen Hall

Down on Comegys Road, two miles from the Rifle Club that meets Wednesdays, summer to fall, firing into a blackness they call night but I know is a body, in unpaved Kennedyville, not far from the Bight, on five acres of green organic farm, next to the algaed pond that yields the best fishing in all of Kent County (my neighbor says it is a lingering death I deal the trout when he sees me throw the small bodies back), down where the commonest cars are tractors and hayfetchers, and men wave as they pass, briefly bowing a gentleman’s straw hat, you can find the wood cabin where I live, infested with stink bugs.  Every day, my boyfriend asks the murder count, making light of my hatred. Even reading I sit, swatter poised on the couch’s arm, all the windows closed, fans off, the whole house listening for the thwat of stink alighting smartly on sun-warmed glass, their soft-backed geometric carapaces calling to be stopped.  I did not grow up like this, here on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, but I am most at home now I live with something inside to kill.            Copyright © 2014 by James Allen Hall. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “I regained my South this year, a place I’ve fled, a place I charge and change by living in it. When I moved to Kent County, people—neighbors, colleagues, the postmaster—thought I should know that here was the last place in the United States to desegregate its public schools. It seemed a place as good as any to learn the ugly interior of ourselves.” —James Allen Hall   James Allen Hall is the author of Now You’re the Enemy (University of Arkansas Press, 2008). He teaches at Washington College and lives in Kennedyville, Maryland. Most Recent Book by Hall   Now You’re the Enemy (University of Arkansas Press, 2008) "Letter to God" by Mark Doty "The Hammers" by Jericho Brown "In the Waiting Room" by Elizabeth Bishop Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038