REVELERS FROM THE ANCIENT HARVESTS by Thomas Zimmerman
July 30, 2007 Poetry
They stagger, trip, curse in the furrows of the brown,
harvested field.
So old that their bodies rattle
like twigs and dried seeds, they steal their sight
from the gibbous moon, eat stalks and shucks
and chaff and clods of manure.
One of them gnaws
her own hand.
Another gibbers, then howls:
he smells the chicken coop.
They shamble on,
thirty of them at least, past the silo,
the tractor shed, the laundry line, my daughter’s
bike.
I’ve heard them, dreamed them, for years, but never
seen them.
I wait here on the porch.
They’re coming
close.
One of them’s swinging a rusty scythe.
I’ve used the shotgun on my kids and wife.
The barrel lies hot across my naked thighs.
