Adrian Blevins: Explanation

When in doubt grow more hair
is one of the sayings I am full of.
As if a petty part of a person could be
thicker than but almost exactly like
long streams of fast water. As if
one might even get addicted to
the bodily aspects of certain sentences
and even somewhat drown in them
as though they were a bona fide
cascade. O yes a fibrous veil
of dirty blonde cells can beckon
an erstwhile child’s rotten old psyche
to call to mind the rice-cracker aspects
of hair that can make a kind of box
one might jump behind to be a
kitten for. I mean, to hide in
and to peek out of when the coast
is clear. O yes I admit I think this
though I am a gun-toting renegade
from algebra. And was for some time
a teenage fugitive in a teenage redneck’s
redneck truck. Oh and a sad little degenerate
set loose for a day down Wild Cat Holler
in jeans ending in the too-blue
blue shape of a bell. O fuck
how the mountains would hang over us
like the wide brows on the faces of kings
while we built our fires by the creek
that was so gauzy and meek
we would walk in it sometimes
if we wanted to and always we wanted to
and so always we did: we were
the free children of Appalachia
and disliked wearing shoes
and thus would take them always off
and toss them here and there
to wander shaggy nowhere together
down that twisted stream.

—

First published in North American Review.

Republished by permission of the author.

Adrian Blevins