"Spanish Moss"

Bon Secour, Alabama

for my momma

Prelude:

Spanish moss drips

from live oaks,

hangs from limbs

that dive

towards the earth.

It survives,

despite summertime droughts,

a week or two of winter.

Brittle and despondent,

it hangs like

unconditioned hair,

split ends

trying to capture

every last drop

until there’s nothing left,

and it falls

like ash

to the ground.                                    

Epilogue:

We saw it hanging everywhere

that day in Bon Secour, when we parked

outside the gates of the Swift-Coles’ house.

We walked in. I found a piece on the ground.

It crunched in my hand, already dead.

Mosquitoes swarmed, and I swatted

while her eyes glazed over, watched

the sun set over the old nets on that washed-up

shrimping boat, leftover to rot after Frederic.

Two weeks later, when my sister called

to give me the bad news, I was bucket-perched,

pitching short toss to my ball players.

Colonoscopy tumors malignant.

My grip on those raised laces loosened

then tightened then loosened again.

Red dirt pools clotted at my feet.

That night, I dreamt I found her choking

on a mouthful of Spanish moss, briny water

seeping from the corners of her mouth.

When I ran to her, her jaw clenched tightly

around the gravity of seventy-two years of loss.

Obstinance and insolence got you here.

You could have prevented this.

And like so many times before, she walked out

into the tannin water, though she never learned

to swim, a mouthful of bitterness strangling her.

This time, I’m afraid it may do her in.

I woke up screaming Just open your mouth

open your mouth open your mouth.

I’ll take it from you.

--by Jessica Sampley, published In SAS Poetry 2021