Joe Wilkins

Houston Sonnet

Years ago I was lost for an entire summer
in Houston. I couldn’t find my way
from Delano Street, did not believe there was a door
that led out of Enrique’s Pool Hall, or any path
from the cracked lip of that cup of warm beer.
I was trying to be a good junior high math teacher
but was sick in the heart, that poor burbling
organ, meaty thwack and flush of blood—it was all
too hot, and when the air-conditioner
in my classroom broke, I opened the windows,
and we all wheezed and coughed refinery smoke,
the ash of the Third Ward up in flames,
and Quinton raised his hand and asked,
Why do cities burn so easy?

Mississippi Sonnet

When you drive to Jackson in the dark,
the highway’s white as old bone. Far off lights
of cropper shacks float eternally away
from you, the incredible heaviness
of rivers. You swallow the damp smoke
of burnt chaff, houses, tree stumps.
Of course someone is waiting for you,
someone with dusky hair and cypress eyes.
What songs of sadness and old rivers
does she sing? Do you see yourself in her songs?
Are you there, in a field of wind,
your back bent to the earth? You drive to her
to keep this night from shattering,
like a dry bone, in your hands.