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On Seeing Dionysus at the Hydraulic Road K-mart
By Kendra Hamilton
Iakhos, holy one, lightly treads linoleum aisles past
lawn mowers, half-price books, Martha’s pastel towels.
A cart, leopard-drawn, draped in grapevine, trundles
at his heels. Square-hipped shop girls sigh and sweat.
They hear the maenads singing—though there are those
who see only someone’s dad, taller than many, better looking
than most—a deacon in somebody’s church? Proof,
I say, our world’s not odd enough for outlandish you.
Or contrarily that, of this parking lot world smelling so
strongly of diesel fumes, you are the savior. Marooned here
among the adenoidal girl singers and jumbo tubs of peanut
butter, I could be your Ariadne, lost and longing to be found.
It is spring, your feast-time. Leaves are on the vines. We broach
new wine to pour libations, and we grow young… we grow young.
Copyright © Kendra Hamilton. All rights reserved. Used with the permission of the author.
Kendra Hamilton is a writer by profession — the assistant editor of a national higher education magazine — and a poet by vocation. She’s been published in Callaloo, Southern Review, Shenandoah, River Styx and anthologized in Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam. Her collection, The Goddess of Gumbo, is forthcoming in fall 2006 as part of the Word Press series.
Copyright © 1997-2006 by Cave Canem Foundation, Inc.
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