Cathy Barber

Yokel

It was how I spoke, could not help but speak, like some holler-born, hillbilly yokel or at least that was the role cast by my new neighborhood’s kids, a gang of ten-year-old, bike-riding spell checkers, riding in slow circles and harping on my southern drawl, like your tongue determined your heart— or brains or spleen—doesn’t matter he or she spoke like an oversized nose! I wear that memory, have some roots in hillbilly yokel but it’s a distant costume now—one that peeks and flirts like petticoats. I have no awareness, no ear, but sometimes the idea of difference in how I speak is alluded to by some stranger, who will lift a brow, ask in third person “where her accent is from” and I’m suddenly rags and hollers. Why can’t I be above that now instead of becoming her again, all skinned elbows and dirty ankles?

Golden Shovel format: The end word of each line, read top to bottom, comprises the poem of another poet. (“Fragment #37,” Sappho)

Cathy Barber

Prayer

Every night Mom oversaw bedtime. I can still see her expectation. I remember she’d sit on the edge of the bed for “Now I lay me,” my hands folded dutifully. I shared the single upstairs room; my sister lay on her side of the divider, younger me on mine. Prayer was meant to bring down God’s attention, love, and protection to us both, but witches filled my restless sleep with their child-finding powers, spells, etc.

Golden Shovel format: The end word of each line, read top to bottom, comprises the poem of another poet. (“I Remember,” Joe Brainard )

Cathy Barber