Green Linden Press

Trailer Park Psalm

Bless us, Lord of corrugated tin,
of crooked windows held against the wind

with mold-dark duct tape, of roofs repaired
against rain that would not let up.

Bless us, Lord of all that patches, holds,
is good enough—plywood, foil, fast-dry foam,

my grandma’s hands that worked
the wood stove chimney back to shape.

Bless us, Lord of the mildewed scent
my grandma raised me in—

of carpets singed with cigarettes,
ashtrays from Folgers tins,

Hamburger Helper and discount meat
in cedar-shadowed kitchens.

Bless us, Lord, as we were back then:
a pack of knobby boys on bikes,

girls with creosote-lined eyes and smiles
slick with gloss. Bless our uncooked

Northwest skins, ghost-white except for Ian’s,
whose hands hung dark as loam.

Bless Ian, who called out, How, white man
and punched whoever laughed.

Bless Jake, his red hair lighting the street
on the night his trailer burned—

he fled with his bike, bag of CDs,
his stepdad’s .44. Bless Jorie

whose twin sisters died
and came back as raccoons

and John, who chewed dry cat food
as he swaggered up the gravel strip.

Bless blackberries fat with summer rain,
dark as blood from thumbs we pricked.

Bless bracken, birch, Douglas fir,
the nettle’s electric ache.

Bless the sword fern’s dusty seeds
that ease a nettle’s sting. Bless the cedars

we climbed at dusk until our trailers
looked like toys. Bless Rick in the woods

with his butterfly knife, slicing only rain,
unfolding his blade with flourishes

he gave religious names—Heaven’s Sword,
Angel’s Teeth, Handshake with God.

Bless the possums who spoke in tongues
at night in the neighbor’s trash.

Bless Dick, eyes emptied by a war
we were too young to know,

who guarded the mail, cigarette unlit,
always on patrol. Bless the dark

of Northshore Road, where Jake hid
as his trailer burned, where his mother

had crashed their pickup truck
in snow the year before.

Bless the firs that tried to stop her.
Bless Jake, Lord, he went to war.

Bless Jorie, who left for Mexico
and Ian, who said he was heading west

though we lived as west as you could go.

Love Poem with Stinging Nettles

Flash where the gutter spills
to the sunstruck runnel—

could we be this changeable and true?

Today a gray dawn hung in your hair
and in my ear your breath sounded like this, this,
a word the whole body believes.

Noon flickers on undergrowth, crow bones
blown against an elm

and my heart, which knows for its home
only wilderness
now chooses your wilderness—

  your hands red from nettles,
slick with the milk of split thistles,

our shins breaking sun in the creek.

(These poems are from the chapbook Something Bright, forthcoming from Green Linden Press.)

Ryler Dustin is the author of the poetry collection Heavy Lead Birdsong from Write Bloody Publishing. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, he has represented Seattle on the final stage of the Individual World Poetry Slam, and his poems appear in American Life in Poetry, The Best of Button Poetry, Gulf Coast, Verse Daily, The Best of Iron Horse, and elsewhere.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2022