Abstract
Bless us, Lord of corrugated tin, of crooked windows held against the wind with mold-dark duct tape, of roofs repaired in rain that would not let up. Bless us, Lord of all that patches, holds, is good enough—plywood, foil, fast-dry foam, my grandma’s hands that worked our wood stove chimney back to shape. Bless us, Lord of the mildewed scent my grandma raised me in— of carpets singed by cigarettes, ashtrays made from Folgers tins, Hamburger Helper and discount meat in cedar-shadowed kitchens. Bless us, Lord, as we were back then: a pack of knobby boys on bikes, girls with creosote-lined eyes and smiles slick with gloss. Bless our uncooked Northwest skins, ghost white except for Ian’s, who called out, How, white man and punched whoever laughed. Bless Jake, his red hair lighting the street on the night his trailer burned— he fled with his bike, a bag of CDs, his stepdad’s .44. Bless Jorie whose twin sisters died and came back as raccoons. Bless John, who chewed dry cat food as he swaggered up the gravel strip. Bless blackberries fat with summer rain, dark as blood from thumbs we pricked. Bless bracken, birch, Douglas fir, the nettle’s electric ache. Bless the sword fern’s dusty seeds that ease a nettle’s sting. Bless the cedars we climbed at dusk until our trailers looked like toys. Bless Rick in the woods with his butterfly knife, slicing only rain, unfolding his blade with flourishes he gave religious names—Heaven’s Sword, Angel’s Teeth, Handshake with God. Bless the possums who spoke in tongues at night in the neighbor’s trash. Bless Dick, eyes emptied by a war we were too young to know, who guarded the mail, cigarette unlit, always on patrol. Bless the dark of Northshore Road, where Jake hid as his trailer burned, where his mother had crashed their pickup truck in snow the year before. Bless the firs that tried to stop her. Bless Jake, Lord, he went to war. Bless Jorie, who left for Mexico and Ian, who said he was heading west though we lived as west as you could go.