LAMENT FOR THE LARD FIRKIN

 

 

Lard Firkin.  Chain Trace.  Thunder Mug.

We don’t need these words anymore.

 

No one said abstract expressionism

when they whitewashed the maples.

 

The Zenith voice box took up one whole corner

with its façade like a cathedral window.

 

No one said façade.

No one said cathedral

 

though they ran a plumb line

and built a Methodist church.

 

Clapboard.  Woodstove.  Altar Call.

They dismantled two hogs

 

to make it through the winter.

Souse Meat.  Cracklings.  Liver Pudding.

 

Those too can go.

You don’t have to know a treadle

 

from a two-man saw.

Come butter come

 

is no way to talk.

Goodbye good words

 

and the mouths they fit.

We don’t need names now

 

for the gear to get up a mule.

We don’t need a wagon tongue,

 

and saying it

will not make it so.

 

 

 

Michael Chitwood