102
2014
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
2013 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE Fnalist
Honeysuckle by Joan McLean
A grey tomcat stiff-legs across the gravel lane, roused finally by the evening cool. Old Marvin Perry’s 12-pack of empties lies in the wheel track, their aluminum glow conversing with the moon. The tom drops down into the ditch and the weeds take him and fold him into the night. I wanted to walk home from my neighbors’ house even though it’s well past midnight and I’m dead tired. The honeysuckle had opened in the afternoon heat and its scent makes holes open up in the top of my head. I like how it feels when the night and moonlight go in and out through the holes.
I want to tell someone about the holes and I consider calling out for old Marvin. Maybe one of his empties is full. Then I hear him or someone coming along the lane. Just a shape, dark in the dark. Marvin’s been dead eleven years, but he still drinks here every Wednesday night. Still leaves his empties in the dirt. He stops a few yards away, points at me, just over my head. Says “Honeysuckle” then steps down into the ditch.
Joan McLean is a self-employed ecologist living in Silk Hope, NC. She has published two chapbooks, Up From Dust (2009) and Place (2011), both from Finishing Line Press. Her poems have received several awards, including a McDill Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society, a Poetry Council of North Carolina Award, and two first prizes in the Fields of Earth poetry competition. She was also a finalist for the Gribble Press Chapbook Prize.
number 23