Poetry from Kentucky: The Good Earth is Frozen Over, Dogs

By Billy Cosby

The Good Earth is frozen over, dogs, but
you two are scalding kilns with glassy stares
that beam out in stripes, striking Earth’s white cup:
a mug glossy now with silver, icy cares.
Um, shut down the heat, pups; let’s power down
and be as embers and sew hot burgoo*
with our heads, brew cups of proper tea: drown.
Let’s play charades – move like magma.  Let’s stew.
Our good room draws coughs (for its smooth friction)
from the land’s bronchitis, scoffing at us,
but we’ve melted, already; we’re a ton
of boiling water – heated justice.

We’ll play later, cold ‘bergs and ‘cicles.
For now, hot, copper chocolate slow trickles.

*burgoo: Appalachian and/or Blue Ridge Mtn. stew made up of whatever’s lyin’ around.

Billy Cosby: I’m a Kentucky transplant (going on six years) from Virginia and I’m in my tenth year of teaching in middle school.  The part of my personality that makes me (at least) an average Language Arts teacher in middle school does find its way into my personal writing.  I sometimes lack couth and occasionally insert a Kentucky drawl into my poetry, but still my thoughts are as sincere as my love for dogs – generally, the focus of my writing.  I’ve had one other poem published, not shockingly, “If a Labrador Pees in the Forest,” in the magazine, BARk (Sept. – Oct. 2012).

This poem is among the entries for the Society’s 2012 Poetry Competition.