Gothic-ism-esq

by Devlin De La Chapa

He sat beneath the threat of rain
and watched the chickens peck

he had a favorite here and there,
the others were just props, ornaments,
trophy’s on a life less accomplished

the southern dust picked up and
tethered through his thick dark hair,
the same hair she pulled on many nights
before the fights before the idea of
peaking the American Gothic-ism-esq

a wooden screen door slams against the frame
of a door twice built, he notices the house is old
but holding well as she reaches him in a blue polyester
period dress in feline steps mirroring the cat ambling
beside her legs mirroring the chickens clucking

“where’s dinner?” her tone is broken like a tune
of past regret, lips thin, bare, refined, unpursed
like their lives unrehearsed on mother’s earth

sighing, he plucks up a favored chicken thinking, as
he headed toward the barn, that she at least deserved that.