ROAD TRIP

I am relaying the time she saw a goat head in the field.
The men were getting drunk. Was it soccer or polo
they were playing? Horses emulate human energy
for protection, like a rural frat. Out of that house ran
boys with a hatchet, as a joke. They hang the weapon
as a wreath to adorn the entrance with a love language.
These days I make music in case of emergency, to say
there was a voice here, to make my silence sing.
Moths lust after a moon that proves only to be
a single troubled lightbulb. With just a flashlight
children in the garage morph into adult shadows.
You can see the fireworks tonight as we climb out
the bedroom window, and in that field something still
rolls through the bristlegrass, as part of a game.

Hannah Treasure is a lecturer in the English Department at Clemson University. Previously she taught at Brooklyn College, where she earned her MFA in poetry in 2020. She has served as the poetry editor of The Shanghai Literary Review. Her work appears in Cordella Magazine, Sonora Review, No Dear, Claw & Blossom, and Volume Poetry, among others.