Metairie V.
The neighbors unfold metal chairs to watch
a road crew rake asphalt. All December
I can’t even bring myself to mail a letter.
I worry about the pipes, the telephone wires
too close to our heads. Mosquitoes hatch
in the empty planter behind the house, forgotten
and now too heavy to dump. A little sleep,
a little slumber, and poverty will come upon you
like a robber. Some nights I drive with my headlights
off until the last television in the city flickers out.
*“Metairie V.” appears in Tall Grass With Violence (FutureCycle Press, 2022) and originally appeared in Thrush Poetry Journal.
RACHEL MARIE PATTERSON is the co-founder and editor of Radar Poetry. Tall Grass With Violence, Rachel’s debut full-length collection, was released in 2022 by FutureCycle Press and her chapbook, If I Am Burning, was published by MSR in 2011. Rachel’s poems appear or will soon appear in many journals, including Harpur Palate, Cimarron Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Smartish Pace, Parcel, The Journal, Thrush, Nashville Review, Redivider, and Fugue. She won an Academy of American Poets Prize in 2012, and in 2019, her poem “Connemara” was selected as a Special Mention for the Pushcart Prize. She now lives in New Jersey with her husband and daughters, where she works for the State of New Jersey.
