BOOK REVIEW David Rigsbee reviews Staying Blue by Gibbons Ruark
Bethany Schultz Hurst's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as RHINO, Willow Springs, Cream City Review, and Spoon River Review. She currently lives in Pocatello, Idaho, where she teaches writing at Idaho State University.
A Sturdy House
The wind throws itself at the house over and over.
I used to be like that too, but slashing someone's tires
ain't gonna make him love you again. That over
is over. Make me is what I'd say when my mother
requested the tedious. I forgot she already had:
for ninth months she made my mouth and ears,
determined the perfect ratio of length between
my fourth and second fingers, those fingers named
for doing what any other could do: wear a ring, point,
just as I suppose any other lump of cells
in my mother's body could have borne my name.
But it still wouldn't have done the dishes when she asked
or believed in the invisible things that she did.
The wind has a face that I imagined
but the house isn't changed for withstanding it.
The next morning I check for loose shingles,
a splintered door. There's no damage. Already
the house has forgotten all but its own foundation.
Bethany Schultz Hurst's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as RHINO, Willow Springs, Cream City Review, and Spoon River Review. She currently lives in Pocatello, Idaho, where she teaches writing at Idaho State University.