eyeballing the haunted air
  - at the site of the Colfax Massacre April 13, 1873
 
Colfax, Louisiana is a time-worn town,
the asphalt gash of Main Street an inclusion
held immobile by the amber cyst
of summer. Encircling
 
singlewides lay siege to the simple homes
whose flanks, crazed with age lie low
slung along the levee. Windows
boarded as if blinded. Teetering,
 
an abandoned mudbrick church becomes
the dust it shades. Fingers of bone
white weed probe the caramelized air
through the soil’s press.
 
Along hardscrabble trails share cropper
shacks lean over the red soil, farm
dogs eyeballing the haunted air
with its scent of magnolia and despair.


Published in You Are Here: Journal of Creative Geography