Growed up & thrust
Into the stillness:
Moon showing its hid face
Stars like spilled salt
On a black table
Who will clean this mess
Up who will
In the star-addled night
Thwart and throttle
Teeter near the edge of what-all’s
Got you girl
Little angel of the valle
Little bear-cub little howler
On the llano all growed up
Little cholla
Little yucca with your spiked hair
Waddling the fenceline
Listing on the cusp of
In the white gown of
In the pink church of
Saying I do saying yes
Little doggie saying whoa
—
Winsome Charter, born in West Virginia to parents who belonged to a charismatic church where they handled snakes and spoke in tongues, left home at 17. Her upbringing still lingers in her interests in incoherence and poisons, and thus poetry. All her poems appear in the online journal SCREWRENT
