Joseph P. Wood

Excerpt from CARPETBAGGING: TUSKEGEE NATIONAL FOREST SUITE


~::~

You say you feel something
borderline gross
..............................like bologna in the dark
.........................................................covering a light

..............switch. I close my eyes. I tap my feet. My feet are boats

..............burdened by anchors.
.....................................Lean your lips on this lobe
..........................................................My Love, kiss my
...........craniotomy. I see sand dunes. I see witchgrass. Newly minted

.............motels hurricaned.
............................................Come closer, love. Move on
.........................................................................upstate, surrender

.............your lilt. To acres of nowhere. Summer's fat, mean mouth. Blow

.............harder, baby.
........................................breeze, stir those black
...................................................................flies. Up I go

.............down to the swamp. Open your hand, My Love. What squalor.




Joseph Wood currently lives in Tuscaloosa, AL and is a lecturer in English and Creative Writing at the University of Alabama. His first full book of poems, I & We, will be published by CustomWords in 2010. He is also the author of two chapbooks: Travel Writing forthcoming from Scantily Clad Press and In What I Have Done & What I Have Failed to Do, which won the 2005 Elixir Press Poetry Chapbook competition and was published in 2006. His poems have appeared in a wide variety of journals which include Indiana Review, Beloit Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, Typo, Drunken Boat, West Branch, among others.