Children Born after the War

Somewhere on the road is everything you want:
cantaloupe, okra, roast peanuts overflowing
their bags. Muscadine jelly and moonshine
syrup, each in a heavy glass jar.
Everything rises: mayhaw choked by cane.
Thank your rubber tires and the smooth coins
in your palm. Thank your grandfather
and his battalions of boys. The road here
to Tulsa is lined with track. And each bright
fruit you tongue out of its shell
comes as if on air—no trace of origin, no thorn.

Rachel Richardson
“Children Born after the War” is from Copperhead (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2011), and first appeared in Blackbird fall 2006, vol 5 no 2.