Again to the Sea

by S.K. Stewart

Mama sends you out to pasture,
To turn the horses loose in the brown earth
And waist high stains on the barn
Remind you of the water rising against your skin
………….The shove of rushing water, you lead now by the nose
Alone, your small body a stalwart against the sea

The way the straw scratches as blades of scissors, red lines drawn
And raised on a farm like some sort of
…………Animal
…………………..girl
The stink of it never quite leaving your hair
Clothes smelling of piss, dry dirt, hay

You’ll find the barn cat some days later, body drowned,
Bones in its neck broken, white fur turned brown
But from the mud or the gore you can’t tell
………….By the horses’ feet or the rising water? You can’t tell
The hoof divots in the ground are soft,
And you drive your hands into one
Before burying the damp body

Fields of mud three feet deep, sucking and stinking
Bridges sunken, their wood one season closer to rot
………….Replacement is a cycle, you remember
The coast after a hurricane
Swallowed and beautiful
………….With sun like you’ve never seen before

 

S.K. Stewart is an MFA student at the University of New Mexico where she currently serves as an English and creative writing instructor. She is also the 2024 recipient of Sewanee’s Tennessee Williams Award for Creative Writing in fiction. As a mixed-race woman and proud Southern lesbian, she makes it a point in her writing to hammer away at the monolithic idea of the Lost Cause South.