Marking Twain
The second mark on the line that measured a river’s depth, two fathoms, or twelve feet—safe depth for a steamboat
It’s complicated.
Me and the South. Me,
and the land, and the trees.
Whose ever woods these are
are full of hounds, and secrets
and ropes.
These hollers and creeks are all
one American Lit class away from rivers,
and steamboats, and cotton fields.
The difference between hanging burley
from the top rail
and sometimes barely
hanging,
can be as muddy as the difference
between growing up attracted to
any light-skinned girl
with green eyes
and knowing how I got that way.
It’s complicated,
me and the South, me
and the land and the trees.
Notes:
“Marking Twain” is reprinted from Love House (Accents Publishing, 2023) and is part of the folio “Frank X Walker: Kinfolk.” Read the rest of the folio in the January/February 2026 issue of Poetry.
Source: Poetry (January/February 2026)