Walking Backwards
Kyle Hemmings, July 2009
I want to return to St. Thomas
grow small and wooden,
a messenger for the nuns,
a puppet for the teacher who made us do
paper cut-outs of the presidents.
I will grow still and horizontal
in old hallways that hid the students’ names.
I will grow sparse at the sound
of rosary beads jingling,
the rush of Sister’s Adrian’s steps
striking panic into the heart of a boy
who gave away the shape of the sky
in his answers in Catechism,
who focused on nothing else
but the tremolo of a bluebird’s prediction
that someone’s future was in doubt.
The Last Days of Iowa Jones
Kyle Hemmings, July 2009
He wrapped his heart around the prairie
Made the White River flow through his veins
Thought of a woman back in Tucson
Whose soil was fertile as the wheat belt.
But now there were chest pains
And the maw of mountain lions too close
In Lawrence, Kansas he made his last stand:
Four old buddies who cheated him out of his gold.
One wore a red scarf and answered to the name of Quantrill.
The other three dropped like birds from his childhood.
He took a slug in the jug.
While the rains opened cracks in the earth,
He rode sideways on his mare, past the buttes, the promised hands of plains,
Near Missoula a Crow found him unconscious as stone
A Blackfoot made him rise from the Dead
But he died again or lived forever
So the folks say on the 4:40 to Tulsa
That never took them anywhere.
Kyle Hemmings lives and works in New Jersey where he dreams of playing surf guitar like Dick Dale or handle a wah-wah like Jeff Beck. He sometimes sings in the shower.
