A Sense of Misplace

 

Rural Kentucky plus gay equals

ache of never feeling planted

 

when all around you

are rows and rows

 

of tobacco rooted

so deep it can’t be pulled.

 

I couldn’t tap

this soil for pabulum

 

or grip the clods

that others held tight.

 

I never conjured

the magic of plunging

 

gnarled fingers

into this hard clay.

 

I was the anti-farmer,

the odd non-member,

 

the alfalfa sprout that flaunted

its clean, blanched root

 

obscenely in the air.
 

 

Mark Russell Brown’s poems have appeared in Bloom, The Louisville Review, Wind, and What Goes On. His poetry criticism appears regularly in the Green River Writer’s newsletter.  He has presented his poetry and literary criticism at the LGBT Center in NYC and Princeton University.  The finishing touches have been applied to his manuscript, A Boney-Fingered Reach for God, which is his first collection of poetry.  He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University and works as a research editor with a public relations resource firm.