the midwest gets drunk & sings along to the radio
My father writhed like pentecostal snakes
while he drove drunk a heavy hand
thumping along to his gospel songs
& sometimes he sang on the back porch
while I watched the wasps getting drunk
on fallen apples in the yard their tripartite
bodies small altars in the heat as they moved
with languorous slowness then flew back
to their paper hives to engage in their
communal hum & my father sang
like god was a trapdoor that might
suddenly open & send us tumbling down
& the words were like the fragile skin
after the snake has crawled away
—Doug Ramspeck
—found in Narrative (2022-2023 Poem of the Week)