The Boys From Homer City by Clare Welsh

They came in sputtering cars,

………………kicking the dirt trail to town, 

………………………………tossing empty Menthol boxes 

in tall grass. They came

………………with gravel in their laugh

 ………………………………and biting bottom lips, kissing 

resin from aluminum pipes. 

………………They came cyclical, 

………………………………a generational hum

in their spines, which like bass strings

 ………………snapped on the high note, a blue siren.

 ………………………………They came with rape jokes

tattooed on the back of their hands, 

………………with hands they never could 

………………………………rip off, throw in the river. 

They came with mothers who rapid texted 

………………get home safe, mothers 

………………………………who threw them out with a trash bag

of blankets into the woods. They came

………………voguing in roll-on glitter 

………………………………with an escape plan, the prayer 

of Moses holding a locust 

………………to the sun, or what was left of it 

……………………………...behind the pale flue gas. 

They came too soon, with no money

………………for the abortion. They came to prison. 

………………………………They came to school dances. 

They came cut by the lathe 

………………of their fathers’ mistakes, high as fuck, 

………………………………sober as church basements, 

buried as tenderness, the thrashed green 

………………flesh of resurrection 

………………………………ferns burnt on the burled oak.

Clare Welsh is a writer and photographer based in Pittsburgh. Recent poems can be found in The Massachusetts Review, Salt Hill, and Ghost City Review. Her photographs can be found in The New Delta Review, The New York Times, and Offbeat Magazine. She holds an MFA from the University of New Orleans, and is currently a COAL fellow at the University of Pittsburgh.

3 January 2022