my mother was cruising the manure highway

her voice spoke an endless fog
she asked how do you make friends with pig death
every man had white eyes and farm hands
eighteen agricultures were making bacon
from goldsboro to bolivia
somewhere is a hometown no one pronounces
blood was a river george washington couldn’t cross
the sky was blue and a baby’s pupils boiled
no one was left to cut the kudzu
main street smelled like spit in chinquapin
she raised us in an ivy growth insane asylum
our eviction note was written on chipped paint
breakfast was a dry pond hugged by scum children
sunflower dollars weren’t worth the exchange
we could sit and breathe and not notice a thing

Graham Irvin is from Kannapolis, North Carolina. His chapbook The Woods are now a Traffic Jam and my Family is Deleting Itself was published by Really Serious Literature. His writing has appeared in X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine,Soft Cartel, South Broadway Ghost Review, The Nervous Breakdown, Instant Lit Magazine, and Philosophical Idiot. Follow him on Twitter @grahamjirvin and Instagram @trash_gram_.