Paradise, Indiana Quotes

“Someone Knocks on a Door in the State Where I Was Born

Take me back where hag moths feed
on sweet gums, threshers crushing

wild grapes. Where fields curb
the slaughterhouse, tractors weighted

with wheat. Take me where cars
feed turnpikes, and bones break

down in their graves. Where roads pass
smokestacks; steel pipes scored on the lathe.

Apricots sleep inside branches
as the hunters slip deep into spring.

And a hog drowns in the culvert.
And the muskrat gives over its skin.

Where dirt calls to the ash roots,
the screech owl calling to rain.

Where a boy leans on a headstone,
pretending not to hear his name.”
― Bruce Snider, Paradise, Indiana

“Afterlife

It takes both hands to unfix the spike
he drove into the fence post, worrying dirt
loose from around its base. A spider spins
the ache in my throat. If he were here,

what would he be doing? I torch a phonebook,
watching the names and numbers burn.
I feel the fallen phone line, the horned lark
crushed in the mailbox's rusty throat.

Weevils become the dream work of fields,
the old shack set back in the tree line.
I'm tired of the corn, their fibrous heads.
I'm tired of the white cocoon in the old jam jar,

the fruit bat brimming with darkness.
Barbed wire, concrete slab, slag in the rusty water.
I walk the yard of Holsteins, dewlaps quivering,
nerves pulsing in the udders. Two miles away

the Wal-Mart is going in, barns giving way
to Pizza Hut, Penguin Point. I look across
the silent field. The plow is hard. My heart
is hard. Dirt. Distance. It does not end.”
― Bruce Snider, Paradise, Indiana

“I write my name on his hand.
He laughs. We're drunk.
Anything we say can be taken back.
He leans against me. I push him
down, spilling beer on his shirt.
He says, We shouldn't.
He says, Unbuckle your belt.
I imagine he keeps his eyes open.”
― Bruce Snider, Paradise, Indiana

“The river rose,

homes swept whole down
the riverbank, graveyards submerged,
the dead drifting watery rooms, carp

in sock drawers, clocks gurgling
on walls, a table floating with its bowl
of peaches. The TV flickered. News

and more news: four bodies washed up
at the Church of God near its sign:
And The Lord was sorry He had

made man on the earth.”
― Bruce Snider, Paradise, Indiana

“Faith is the shrinking distance between his mouth and mine.”
― Bruce Snider, Paradise, Indiana

“Omit the Mouth that Answers

the scrub pine dropping needles in a hush.
Omit the washer junked in the corner, mice making nests in its hose.
Omit his key in the ignition.
Omit exhaust.
Omit the mouth that answers.
Omit the barn cat curled asleep on a pile of kindling in the corner of the garage.
Omit the bicycle noosed to its rack.
Omit the saw blade's teeth, the workbench hammer, the uncut plywood beside the rake.
Omit the work lamp with its filmy eye.
Omit his face gone slack.
Omit the mouth that answers.
Omit the algebra book open on the seat.
Omit the moonlight, the cottonwood's glut of hairy seeds.
Omit the drag of the door.
Omit the air let loose from his lungs.
Omit the mouth that answers.
Omit the rise of swallows: wing, beak and claw.
Omit the phone call, the dial tone's skidding hum.
Omit the daylight's questions.
Omit our grieving tongues.”
― Bruce Snider, Paradise, Indiana

“The Drag Queen Dies in New Castle

Returning home
at twenty-nine, you made
a bed your throne, your
brothers carrying you
from room to room,

each one in turn holding
the glass to your lips,
though you were the oldest
of the brood. Buried
by the barn, you vanished,

but the church women
bought your wigs
for the Christmas pageant
that year, your blouses sewn
into a quilt under which

two newlyweds lay,
skin to skin as if they
carried some sense
of your undressing. Skirts
swayed where sheep grazed

the plow and the farmer
reached between legs
to pull out the calf,
fluid gushing to his feet.
On lines across town,

dresses flapped empty
over mulch while you
kept putting on your show,
bones undressing like
it's never over, throwing

off your last great shift
where a fox snake sank
its teeth into a corn
toad's back, the whole
field flush with clover.”
― Bruce Snider, Paradise, Indiana

“I wanted to see the train tracks buckle,
nail-driven straws of wheat. I wanted
to make the sound the wind made,
black eye of the storm peering into
me, the funnel cloud as it swirled.”
― Bruce Snider, Paradise, Indiana

“He saved for months (mowing lawns, taking
extra shifts at the Dairy Queen) and when
finally he brought it home, I helped him
swirling rags, polishing until the hubcaps shone,
the tires special ordered to fit. Easy ride, he'd say,
slamming the brakes - his big joke - instrumental panel
lighting the glove box filled with the manual's
sweet talk - fuel injector, carburetor, exhaust
manifold. So when the call came, I couldn't
help but wonder if he'd planned it all along -
the shut garage, engine idling, sunglasses
slung from the mirror. On the passenger's side
a school book lay open; chewed gum on the seat.”
― Bruce Snider, Paradise, Indiana

“He saved for months (mowing lawns, taking
extra shifts at the Dairy Queen) and when
finally he brought it home, I helped him
swirling rags, polishing until the hubcaps shone,
the tires special ordered to fit. Easy ride, he'd say,
slamming the brakes - his big joke - instrumental panel
lighting the glove box filled with the manual's
sweet talk - fuel injector, carburetor, exhaust
manifold. So when the call came, I couldn't
help but wonder if he'd planned it all along -
the shut garage, engine idling, sunglasses
slung from the mirror. On the passenger's side
a school book lay open; chewed gun on the seat.”
― Bruce Snider, Paradise, Indiana

“And what of Amy Blaine, who drowned when she was twelve?
Nights, I feel her in the cold rain of Indiana.”
― Bruce Snider, Paradise, Indiana