Tennessee Hill

Father in the pasture

Hat the tawny hide of our prized regina pasture cow

whom I brushed, loved, named Ivy. She was leather.
She was protection from light. Our father

patched up the wire fence. Never whistled.
Taught us to earn the deep hole of a funeral.

Haunting is the sound of our faith—

the cow’s slaughter screech. My Ivy, howling.
In the dusk barn, she’d gorged herself on grain.

Softening. Her bones became the viola.
The destruction of our father

amazed me. How he attempted to calm, then beg

me to eat. My brother leading by example, spearing
the meat. Her body; stripped, salted, drying.

A family of wide-brimmed hats. Such a small,
helpful boy, obeying. Our father saying, Devil may care.

and it sounding about right, almost permission.

Tennessee Hill is a 2022 Gregory Djanikian scholar and holds an MFA from North Carolina State University. She has been featured in Best New Poets, POETRY, Beloit Poetry Journal, THRUSH, and elsewhere. She has work forthcoming from Nimrod and Fugue. She won the 2020 Porter House Review Editor’s Poetry Prize and serves as Poetry editor for Gingerbread House Literary Magazine. She lives and teaches in Houston.