P. Hodges Adams
blue month.
where i grew up men just died in the lake.
i don’t have intelligent thoughts on violence.
i guess it happened. but it happened elsewhere.
sometimes a phone call would come through & a short while after, a
funeral.
the ice never broke under me. i’m slight. i’ve never held a gun.
you will never be raped my brother told me.
the threat was a false alarm.
the bar fight didn’t even draw blood.
when we hit the deer it bounded off.
i fought off the boy who tried to throw me in the lake.
i guess there were jealous men but mostly they laid on the floor about it. &
my brother was a graceful skater not a fighter.
fishhook scar on his neck.
fish heart cut into a cube & still beating.
i didn’t hear the gunshots.
i was having sex & bleeding a lot. or at work. or at home.
blue ice. maxfield parrish sunset.
i was probably reading when a student killed my student. &
when the boy was murdered outside the tire shop.
i remember the storm that tipped the boat.
everyone drowned. resuscitation attempted, as per maritime law.
blue mouth.
blue month.
it gets quiet on the lake. crust of ice over what never stops moving.
no water here. no drowning. just gunshots sometimes.
P. Hodges Adams (they/them) received their MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia, where they currently work as a research associate and lecturer. Their work has appeared in Shenandoah, Cutbank, fourteen poems, and elsewhere. Hopefully they will transform into a beam of sunlight someday soon. Find them on Instagram @thelastadams.