The Bottle Tree

Grandpa stuck bottles

on broken branches for luck,

said bottles scared haints

because an empty vessel

could trap one forever inside.

One cold day, Uncle Eudale shot

all the bottles from the tree.

They broke in pops

and a rain of colored glass.

Grandpa yelled and cussed.

Eudale froze that winter, his face

black ice and tongue swollen

like a plug. Granpa said

the haints got 'Dale, and it wouldn't

be long before they got us too.

I laughed at him. "There aint

nothing in them bottles but air."

Grandpa shook his head,

hung new bottles, then prayed

at them with ancient rhymes.

Sometimes I'd wake early

to watch him. When he knelt

the tree seemed to glow, lightly,

like the butt-end of a night bug

or the moon through a church window.

***

Brothers

When Joplin smiled, birds fell dead.

He took Daddy's rifle as always.

This time, we saw a man on a horse

walking slow through the woods.

"Watch this," Joplin said.

One shot. The man went stiff,

pitched back and fell.

Joplin shouted at his bullseye.

The horse reared once and ran.

The man was alive, his jaw

working to catch air like a catfish.

The hole in his neck bubbled.

He held crumpled flowers in his fist.

Joplin swung Daddy's rifle

till nothing in the man moved,

till there was calm and a nice breeze.

Joplin's eyes were falling stars

leaving trails as he turned away.

We went through the pockets:

Two dollars, a watch, and a picture

of some woman leaning on a birdbath.

We kissed the picture, then burned it,

swearing that woman was ours.

I whistled a lick of 'Skip To My Lou.'

Joplin laughed, kicking the man's legs

until I pushed him away.

He slapped me to my knees and spat.

We pulled the man into a wet ditch,

covered most of him with branches.

Joplin made me scoop mud for the rest.

I finished as the moon yawned

high up on its string in the dark.

Joplin cursed and howled, fired at it,

angry its light couldn't be rifled out.

I squeezed a rock and waited,

his smile burning the back of my neck.

***