In my mind’s night
memory fields blossom
with an abstract
of what I have lived.
How can I feel
you chew your tobacco
when you are buried
in your threadbare jeans?
Or that happy hour
when that first burn slick
of Kentucky bourbon
scarred my throat.
If I add a shot before sleep
my memory fields bloom
with father’s work
when he was a teen
clearing by hand
all the weeds from between
long green rows
of waist-high maize
with his farmer’s tan
contrasting against
his sweat soaked white t-shirt
crossed by brown suspenders.
copyright © 2020 Kenneth P. Gurney
Umflop 