Rattle
by Andrea Truitt

Trailer park borderland
reminds me of my mother’s subdivision.
I found honeylocust trees.

Sweet pulp and toxic seeds,
curved mahogany pod-rattles
fallen to the ground.

Over three days I pick up five,
shake them 
looking for 
a sign from Elsewhere, beyond.

Rattle like rain, 
rain wash over me.

Rattle like locusts
please don’t send a plague 
but rather could the universe tell me
to become un-dormant,
come back to life:

Not resurrection,
but direction, at least for now.

One pod coils like a snake.

One small snake crossed my path in
the place of honeylocusts,
another small snake in my yard,
moving into leaves.

Messengers in a moment of change,
I wonder what it would be like to shed all at once
and come out clean.

Things shaking loose from the beforetime 
bits to bring with me in the now
to soothe and safekeep in the coming time.

Pay attention and hope for peace, 
sweet pulp, 
and a rattle.

___

Andrea Truitt lives and works in Iowa City. She loves to think through—by writing about—the ways she interacts with everyday objects and their personal and social meaning. She is working on a chapbook project that incorporates family history and questions the ways she relates to family objects, and what it means to keep a family archive.