A West Virginia Boy
The sick baby’s
Speckled skin
Burns like the forest fire;
Men and comely women
Make the father
Yell and blush.
Oh Lord, they gossip
In their susurrus voices,
We are losing everything.
The infant screams, piercing,
As if he understands
The foreboding omens of the assemblage
Who gather on the crisp lawn
Of the hotel, the last
Fleeting refuge before the fire.
- Shelby Denhof
