Pose
The living love cemeteries.
Just ask the moody photographers
sneaking their clients out
to the old city graves
as the golden hour winds down,
stretching shadows on a Saturday evening
as Autumn color peaks dying brilliance,
avoiding the caretaker who always shows
too much interest in what’s going on,
women whispering, tiptoeing through
the oldest tombstones, avoiding
pinecones and acorns under bare feet,
holding their breath and carefully leaning
over lichen-covered Civil War-era stones,
trying not to pull a string
on their black silk, lace lingerie.
Larry D. Thacker's poetry and fiction can be found in publications including Spillway, Still: The Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Poetry South, The Southern Poetry Anthology, The American Journal of Poetry, and Illuminations Literary Magazine. His books include four full poetry collections, two chapbooks, as well as the folk history, Mountain Mysteries: The Mystic Traditions of Appalachia. His two collections of short fiction include Working it Off in Labor County and Labor Days, Labor Nights. His MFA in poetry and fiction is earned from West Virginia Wesleyan College. Visit his website at larrydthacker.com.