Rebecca Black

Cottonlandia

Little wheel

 

something gnarls in the blood

 

in our Arcadia of mayflies.

 

 

We make wine from muscadines,

 

little wheel turning inside my heart.

 

In January after the crop

 

 

floats to Apalachee

 

other cargo arrives—old men

 

boot-blacked before the auction block.

 

 

Shawl of cassimere, calamus-

 

root, one small revolver

 

on offer at Muse & Co.

 

 

Little wheel turning, gossypium

 

grows gossypium grows

 

along the roads.

 

 

Cotton alone does not spin

 

into cloth     the bridge itself

 

does not burn     little wheel

 

 

turning inside my heart

 

what’s been must be storied

 

grist mill     cotton gin

 

 

what’s invented      inventoried

 

 


“Cottonlandia” first appeared in Poetry, December 2003.