Autumn Scene in Perry County
       

Mennonite girls at sunset float
across the hill, ringed and giggling.
Their dresses, stiff triangles
blue and cream, scrape wind.
Holding hands, they have no use
for centuries. Snug bonnets
cup bulging buns wound
to their crowns. When the light
changes, I drive past their church,
their unadorned omphalos,
from whence the news
spread like ivy rash that morning
after the farmhouse fire:
seven sisters lay by age
in seven coffins planed by hand.

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Copyright © 2020 Adam Tavel All rights reserved
from Little Patuxent Review
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