RJ LAMBERT

NARRATIVE OF RURAL TENSES

Brambles rustle. Dirt hills jut like knuckles
in the sun, punching dawn to dusk.

The theft of hours at unknown hands
may not reiterate. One discerns

one’s intimacy with the land when counting
chickens every season of a life by hand.

Then, just like that, I’m kicking back attacks,
as fighting’s in the rooster’s blood.

But fighting’s also buried in the land,
below floorboards, before closed doors

were ever knocked by hands.
See how the house somehow remembers

where to stand. Somehow, sun happens
upon our pleasant & familiar town,

urging roosters into song. They number
more than people in the world.

__________

R.J. LAMBERT (HE, HIM, HIS) IS A QUEER WRITER WITH RECENT OR FORTHCOMING POEMS IN BENDING GENRES, THE BROADKILL REVIEW, AND THE ILANOT REVIEW. HE WAS SELECTED BY KAVEH AKBAR TO RECEIVE THE 2021 PATRICIA CLEARY MILLER AWARD FOR POETRY FROM NEW LETTERS AND NOMINATED FOR A 2021 PUSHCART PRIZE BY THE WORCESTER REVIEW. HIS DEBUT POETRY COLLECTION, MIND LIT IN NEON, IS NEWLY AVAILABLE FROM FINISHING LINE PRESS. R.J. TEACHES WRITING AT THE MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA AND IS ONLINE AT RJ-LAMBERT.COM OR @SOYRJ ON TWITTER.