it's incredible (7/25)

it's incredible 
how the dark changes things, isn't it?
All the green things that fill the air
are lipsticked thick with gorgeous stink 
of creek river, purpled by the night
The sweet stray you thought was your friend
is now howling in time with your flickering pulse
a bump in the night sends the sleeping bitch in the yard cage barking
and your skirt is getting tortured into thread
as your slippers stumble over air
There is no space for the charming town you thought you'd tamed earlier that day
the mountains
they tame you
though you thought a wild child would slip right into place with the dusky shadows

You realize with new clarity what someone told you earlier when it was safe
     the trail you are walking alone
     is the unmarked grave of a railroad
You wonder if the imperfectly glowing faces of foliage 
are ghosts watching you pass
You wonder if your ghosts are scarier
but they are already dissolved into the potion this town is fixing
they get taken out in bodybags by the haunts of this place
the windows of what you realize is county jail rattles its bars at you
bares its fangs and dares your eyes to search the dark for what might be footsteps
A lot of old history molds on your bones, you know
turns you into something hairy

***
eKY Flood Relief Annotation 8/16/22
Summertime in the mountains blurs the boundaries between truth and tale. I could never steel my nerves long enough to not run the last bend home.
In the summer of 2016, I was writing a ghost novel based in an imaginary mountain town influenced by oral stories I collected from folks I met around Letcher County. I remember meeting a fellow who professed to be a ghost hunter out on the deck behind Summit City. He showed me videos of previous expeditions with his team and regaled me with the bloody story of the Hatfield-McCoy family feud, arguing that conflicts of such magnitude leave traces behind on the grounds they play. If true, doesn't that make the triumph of a community's shared joy and trust that much more worthy? The masterwork of nighttime tellings lies in knowing that our anxieties dissipate with laughter among our friends. If there is evidence of past grief, let me point you to present evidence of grace. Support the folks creating hope in the next chapter of rebuilding after the late July floods:
https://tinyurl.com/summitcity

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