Improv 1, Week 7

Mapping the Drift (selection)
Sandra Meeks

By law, southern colonists raised mulberries, a sheen
silkworms spun to sleek winding cloths,
body casings unraveled to thread
women wove to clothe children now woven

into this earth sprouting shepherd’s purse, beggarweed,
evening primrose a green an anole, American
chameleon, has matched exactly, the hunt a stillness

sculpting him as second stem until, crossing
so easily into a predicted future, he darkens
to burnt umber, shade of the dying doveweed
he steps onto, disappearing once more

into this battlefield where I’ve traced myself
back to the great-great-great-great Carolina
grandfather who fought among the ancestors

of these blighted pines. Don’t we all long
to become the view?

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I’ve traced myself: flat-footed and drunk
in my grandmother’s wedding dress. I circle
on the wall the white doll’s pointy elbows
and I smudge a basting of mulberries on its cheeks.

I draw an arrow to each scar and label history,
poison oak from trunk of dogwood, corner of armrest
on hotel lobby chair, patch of briars during 7th grade

hike. I follow the wall to the one arm that shortens
a bit more than the other, ending at the wrist,
tractor explosion at county fair. On that day
two 4-H boys were passing out jars of mulberries,

and the crowd shrieked, after the smoke lifted,
to find them smeared in berry. My grandmother
used to always answer the door in her silk nightgown,
certain the visitor would always be her lover.

She pinned my hair back for me everyday
when I lost my hand. Now she is blind as my left set
of fingers, always searching for a stranger
to gasp and ask, can you see me?