WEBVTT

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The next poem is
called Bright Leaf,

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and that's just the
tobacco that they

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grow in that area of Virginia.

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"Bright Leaf"

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Like words put to a song,
the bunch tobacco leaves

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are strung along a stick,

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the women standing in the
August heat for hours,

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since first light, under the
pitched tin roof, barefoot,

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and at their feet the babies,
bare assed, dirty, eating dirt.

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The older children hand
the leaves from the slide,

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three leaves at a
time, stalks upright,

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3 handers for each stringer,
and three more heaped canvas

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slides waiting in what
little shade there is.

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It's 10 o'clock,
almost dinnertime.

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They pull the
pails of cold lunch

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and Mason jars of
tea out of the spring

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when they see the farmer
coming from the field,

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their men stripped to the
waist, polished by sweat

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and tired as mules.

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By afternoon the
loose cotton dresses,

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even the head rags
are dark with sweat.

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Still their fingers
never miss a stitch,

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though they are paid not by
the stick but by the day,

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And the talk-- unbroken news
of cousins and acquaintances--

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unwinding with the ball of
twine, a frayed snuff twig

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bouncing on one lip,
the string paying out

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through their calluses,

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the piles of wide green
leaves diminishing,

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until the men appear
with the last slide

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and clamber up the rafters of
the barn to line the loaded

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sticks along the tiers.

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It's Friday: the farmer pays
with a wad of ones and 5s,

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having turned the mule
out to its feed and water,

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hung up the stiffened
traces and the bit.

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He checks again the other
barns, already fired,

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crude ovens of log and mud
where the crop is cured.

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In that hot, dry, acrid air
spreads a yellowing leaf

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across his palm, rolls
an edge in his fingers,

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gauging by its
texture and its smell

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how hard to drive the fire.

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His crew is quiet
in the pickup truck.

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Did you think they were singing?

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They are much too
tired to even speak,

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can barely lick salt
from the back of a hand,

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brush at floors, hush
a baby with a sugartit.

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And the man who owns
this land is also tired.

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Every day this week he's
meant to bring home pears

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from the old tree by
the barn, but now he

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sees the fruit has fallen,
sees the yellow jackets feeding

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there.

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He lights a Lucky, frames
a joke for his wife:

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he'll say their banker raised
a piss poor field this year.

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And she will lean
against the door jamb

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while he talks, while he scrubs
his hands at the tin basin,

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with a split lemon
and a pumice stone

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rubs them raw, trying
to cut the gummy resin,

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that stubborn black
stain within the green.

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