POETRY November 2, 2012

History

Audrey Walls

Audrey Walls

Satterfield House, Louisa County, Virginia

From the fogbound gravel drive,
the paper lanterns drift
in pecan trees like small moons—
their cold light humming. The house
in his family for more than
three hundred years,
some shrug & say farm
others whisper plantation.
Arriving, we stumble
through grasses wet & blue,
past the huddled graves—
names diminished,
to a bonfire that tosses red
limbs. Above, every cornice
& gable claims a shadow.
Each of us— a jar
of bones, rattling.

Audrey Walls' poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from Cimarron Review, Controlled Burn, Cream City Review, Shenandoah, storySouth, Unsplendid and elsewhere. She was named a finalist for Shenandoah's 2011-2012 Graybeal-Gowen Prize, and received the Arts Club of Washington's 2011 Scholarship Award for Student Poets. She is poetry editor of the online literary journal failbetter and an MFA candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Audrey Walls’ poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from Cimarron Review, Controlled Burn, Cream City Review, Shenandoah, storySouth, Unsplendid and elsewhere. She was named a finalist for Shenandoah’s 2011-2012 Graybeal-Gowen Prize, and received the Arts Club of Washington’s 2011 Scholarship Award for Student Poets. She is poetry editor of the online literary journal failbetter and an MFA candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University.