Improv 1 Week 2

A portion of Carolyn Forché's “For the Stranger”

There are a few clues as to where
we are: the baled wheat scattered
everywhere like missing coffins.
The distant yellow kitchen lights
wiped with oil.
Everywhere the black dipping wires
stretching messages from one side
of a country to the other.
The men who stand on every border
waving to us.
---
There are a few clues to where
we are: Pine trees lined like corn stalks,
their feet shivering with no brush.
Cranberry cotton fields as beautiful and harsh
as snow. The townspeople—white, withered—
trail in flocks to baptisms and daily sermons,
praying for their harvests below. Pumping
wells and frying corn, they gaze at the
minstrels on their wall, reciting Little Black Sambo
for grandchildren. The sand under their feet and in
porch cracks only fed the onions and pecans,
as the fat fingers of vidalias reach for Toombs.