For Charles Burchfield

by Buzz Poole

Outside, Walt’s shadow fades as sundered rounds of oak litter the darkling yard’s rain-matted spring grasses as inside curls of potato-peel pile around Amanda’s feet. Spring twilight’s slate slathered sky echoes the just passed storm. Whispers of buds blur branches magnifying the day’s last light that wavers through the kitchen window so that Amanda must block it with left forearm to forehead as she threads the wooden spoon through the cast iron pot’s lid which she lifts and feels the boil bustle across her face, breathes its warmth. She piles the potatoes into the pot; the starched simmer causes her to run her tongue along her upper lip, salty as the creases of Walt’s mouth only without the wood flecks that he now wipes away with his sweat seasoned hand drawn up and down his damp denim-clad thigh. He spits frothed saliva into his palms, rubs them and grips the ax handle, raises it high above his head grunts, “Last one,” before the aged steel head reaches its acme and descends on the gnarled log, its nodes like potato eyes.