Hobble Creek Review
| Jeff Newberry |
Childhood
From my bed, I hear footsteps.
*
Beyond the jalousie windows, something hefts in the dark, something
weighty, an oiled shadow. August-dried grass crunches. Unseen
hands probe seal & siding. My heart seizes at the back door latch.
*
My father’s snores echo down the dark hallway. Cigarette smoke
yellows the beige tiles. His smell is heavy.
*
I imagine a shambling mass of parts: human hands clasping ankles,
mouths drooling red, thighs wedged between shoulder blades.
Walks—no, tumbles—it tumbles, dribbling words from its open scabs.
*
From my back window, I can see the paper mill smoke stacks. Some
nights, they are missiles. Some nights, the smoke unfolds in
mushroom blossoms.
*
Something speaks from the hallways, a voice ribboned in the ceiling
fan’s hiss.
*
My father awakes at 5:00 each morning. His leaves coffee drops on
the kitchen table. His fingers mark the newspaper comics.
*
I wake up & want to scream, but my father has to work tomorrow.
*
Someone is in the backyard: someone faceless, a voice like eastern
thunderheads, like ink thrown on white paper.
*
Something speaks in the roar of paper machines.
*
My room reeks: the factory-churned sulfur, pine wood mulch, the
ever-stinking mill.
From my bed, I hear footsteps.
*
Beyond the jalousie windows, something hefts in the dark, something
weighty, an oiled shadow. August-dried grass crunches. Unseen
hands probe seal & siding. My heart seizes at the back door latch.
*
My father’s snores echo down the dark hallway. Cigarette smoke
yellows the beige tiles. His smell is heavy.
*
I imagine a shambling mass of parts: human hands clasping ankles,
mouths drooling red, thighs wedged between shoulder blades.
Walks—no, tumbles—it tumbles, dribbling words from its open scabs.
*
From my back window, I can see the paper mill smoke stacks. Some
nights, they are missiles. Some nights, the smoke unfolds in
mushroom blossoms.
*
Something speaks from the hallways, a voice ribboned in the ceiling
fan’s hiss.
*
My father awakes at 5:00 each morning. His leaves coffee drops on
the kitchen table. His fingers mark the newspaper comics.
*
I wake up & want to scream, but my father has to work tomorrow.
*
Someone is in the backyard: someone faceless, a voice like eastern
thunderheads, like ink thrown on white paper.
*
Something speaks in the roar of paper machines.
*
My room reeks: the factory-churned sulfur, pine wood mulch, the
ever-stinking mill.
Jeff Newberry is the author of A Visible Sign (Finishing Line Press, 2008),
a nominee for the Conference on Christianity and Literature's Book of the
Year. His work has appeared in The Cortland Review, Memorious, and Barn
Owl Review and is featured in the anthology Best of the Net 2008. The
recipient of a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers'
Conference, he is an Associate Professor of English at Abraham Baldwin
Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia, where he lives with his wife and son.
a nominee for the Conference on Christianity and Literature's Book of the
Year. His work has appeared in The Cortland Review, Memorious, and Barn
Owl Review and is featured in the anthology Best of the Net 2008. The
recipient of a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers'
Conference, he is an Associate Professor of English at Abraham Baldwin
Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia, where he lives with his wife and son.
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