Jeff Burt

List

A list on the back of a receipt,
items of errors to confess to your son,

a thing of a shadowy pencil
grinding with friction begging forgiveness

against the hard plastic that rimmed
the center of the steering wheel,

then placed in the pocket of your pants,
slippery, like mercury

spilled on the floor in drops
one cannot re-gather,

in-between the first and the second
of November, a cold night

when your nineteen-year-old son
gave you a roll of twenties to cover your debt,

placed it near you on the bench seat
of your plow horse Pontiac

as the headlights bottom-clipped
by the stone wall in front of the hood

shone in the eyes of five deer
escaping the seasonal hunt in a shorn cornfield.

You’d eaten a good thick navy bean soup,
remember the smell of husk, the money,

the unused list that scratched your leg
through the hole in the pocket of your pants.

Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California, spending the seasons dodging fires, floods, earth-shaking, and all the other scrambling life-initiatives. He has contributed to Heartwood, Tiny Seeds Journal, Vita Poetica, and Willows Wept Review.