Resume by Kevin Young

Where the train once rained

through town

like a river, where the water

rose in early summer

& froze come winter—

where the moon

of the outhouse shone

its crescent welcome,

where the heavens opened

& the sun wouldn’t quit—

past the gully or gulch

or holler or ditch

I was born.

Or, torn—

Dragged myself

atop this mountain

fueled by flour, buttermilk,

grease fires.

Where I’m from

women speak

in burnt tongues

& someone’s daddy dug

a latrine so deep

up from the dark

dank bottom springs a tree.

“Resume” from STONES: POEMS by Kevin Young, copyright © 2021 by Kevin Young. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.