Verdad Magazine Volume 12
Spring 2012, Volume 12
Poetry by Carol Smallwood
Observing Wood's "American Gothic" (1930)
In rickrack apron and Sunday collar with cameo
I stand near my husband by our white house—
there’s no warmth from John’s black jacket only
a strong hint of pitchfork manure.
The spare room under the pitched roof’s his focal point;
mine’s the whistle of daily trains slicing days in two.
He’s a good man but work has turned his lips dry as hay
and he looks straight at the preacher painting us while
I gaze over mooing cows where wild strawberries
surprise the railroad tracks.
BIO: Carol Smallwood co-edited (Molly Peacock, foreword) Women on Poetry: Tips on Writing; Teaching and Publishing by Successful Women Poets (forthcoming, McFarland) and Compartments: Poems on Nature, Femininity and Other Realms (Anaphora Literary Press, 2011). She is a National Federation of Poetry Societies winner. Her book, Writing and Publishing: The Librarian's Handbook, was published by the American Library Association in 2010.