Cathe Jefferson

Cincinnati, OH, USA

I'm from Little Reed Island, Virginia, a rural community in Carroll County. My maiden name was Reece. I have an undergraduate degree in English from Radford; but I've generally worked in academic libraries and lastly at the University of Cincinnati Libraries. I left U.C. near the end of 1996 to finish my novel, The Ice Cream Truck Is Coming. Its narrative, which opens in Southwest Virginia in 1885, is based on the true story of a caddish miller who impregnated a succession of young women, none of whom he married. The last of these hanged herself in his mill house.

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I am a straw, a reed blowing,
Tumbling, laughing, dancing,
Stumbling joyously. The song
Of your strength humanly
Graceful whistles through the
Joyous tenderness that takes
Imperiously without giving,
That gives imperiously,
Graciously all of me back
To me, all of me that could ever
Matter much to either you or me.

If those angry, roaring rivers
Of bigotry and stupidity, jealous
That I wedded even their banal
Songs with the beautiful, laughing
Winds, send their floods into the
Earth to wash away my angry child's
Heart, will you hide these tears
I hide forever from even the
Shield of you and your dark anger?

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If your heart's the mark,
Even flying upside down and in the dark,
I can always land my butterfly, baby,
I can always land my butterfly.

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The sun has hid
Itself. The sky
Comes in, a long,
Low evil white stretch,
To sting my eyes.
Next door, Bozo, a
White stray tomcat
With an open red
Sore on the side of
His head, sleeps
Peacefully for once on
Someone else's dark
Brown knotty steps.
There never is
A good day to
Die, is there?

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I have a little brown
Ratty hat
Made of wool and yarny leather,
And I wear my little brown round
Ratty hat
Made of wool and yarny knitted leather
When the
Cold wind o-blows - o-blows
Up and down
Round and round and round