The Sunday morning sun creeps
over the pine tree horizon,
washing away the criminal darkness,
which had just aided and abetted
the backwoods engineers and amateur pharmacists
To reveal,
A vandal’s artistry
on the wooden fence that
quarantines the trailer park,
reading in chrome black,
“Redneck Riviera.”
I hand feed fresh Jimmy Dean sausage
to my basset hound, Wilbur
as I overhear the widow Leona’s
early morning broadcast of the first Baptist church of Biloxi.
Today’s sermon: He that restrains his lips is wise out of Proverbs
Cause around here you never know who you’re pissing off.
Wilbur has taught me to rise early
so I can nap in the afternoon
and not be woken by
sheriff’s deputies’ nightly heroisms,
foiling drunken rantings and cock fights.
We keep to ourselves, Wilbur and I
in the third trailer from the left,
the best my electrician’s salary can afford.
Suspicious that my grandfather was an electrician
and had a home in Baton Rouge, a wife and two kids.
But I’ve learned to live like an artist,
to relinquish the devil’s grip on my spine
and relish the early morning quiet,
afternoon zephyrs in September
and Jim Croce ballads.
The poetic oasis saves me.
Cause out of boredom
have these mobile home dwellers fallen
with nothing here to do but a lot of forgetting,
making unintended whores and vagrants of us all.
But I keep myself free
of meth and desperate mothers
gambling and southern comfort
and keep my speech yes sir, no sir,
remembering the preacher’s lesson from Proverbs.
Seems like he can be trusted.
Though the means by which I leave this place evade me
I’ll plant dogwoods to shield us from the vandal’s artistry,
cook crawfish etoufee for the widow Leona
and scent my trailer with honeysuckle candles.
And if I don’t discover the means, maybe they’ll find me.
So that maybe one Sunday morning
in the not to distant future
I can overhear the preacher’s sermon from Exodus
when I depart the trailer-littered grave, arms raised to the sky
as Wilbur barks in triumph,
Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrooooooooooo!!!!!!
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Submission Name: Trailer Park Exodus
