Story of an American Maiden
Keller, TX
2025, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
You were five by five with a big mean eye
but he couldn’t go over or around you
So he struck four stakes in your skin and slept
He was small; you never saw it.
He cursed your home and you felt him spit
and he called you “Hell on Earth”
He was headed to a place where the honey flowed;
You were his trial from God.
So he moved on by and the others came
and they spat and they punctured too
They left a trail and you blew it back
Their dead fed your daughters and sons.
They would steer way clear of the mess you made
They would cling to the western crude–
‘Til the boxes got full and the ribbons got cut
Their steak knives gleaming on high.
The stakes went down and they stuck for good
But the signs that rose fell fast
Your sister had three surnames; they shaved her head;
Her children ran to you.
But he still couldn’t see how to make you work
The doctors kept looking for solutions
You were four by four by the government’s word
Dammit, you were his gift from God.
The town stamped a letter on your forehead
You were ancient and immature
You could be improved, you could be made new
Empty, vacant, free.
You were three by three, as it just fit right,
By the six lane street, for a billboard sign
They had searched your hearth to redeem your soul
But your milk had long run dry.
Then he banged on your chamber in the middle of a night
He had said he would solve you yet
Well, he’d crunched the numbers and your penance was set
At Suite Eighteen-Eighty-and-Two.
They had found every diamond in the ground by then
So you slipped on a thin, barbed ring
The church bell hollered, the sky rained black
Two by two by three.
The coyote and warbler read the sign on the door
They learned a new tongue, a new taste
They called your name through the night and day
‘Til your name stopped sounding like a word.
The boy of the butcher wondered where you’d gone
Could’ya still come out and play?
The banker’s girl felt a strange, warm tug
At the hem of her skirt in the winter.
In your silence, the town heard a little better
The things they were saying to each other
And they each turned an ear to your runaway song
One by one by one.
Reflection
Reflection
As my town, like many others, rapidly develops, I’m increasingly aware of how I’ve taken its “empty” spaces for granted. Naturally, in a place so desirable for family and business, there are few fields in my town not up for development. But my own excitement for new restaurants or stores eventually dissolved into a sort of grief. These places were not empty. By setting a construction date, a sacrifice is made, one by overlooked wildlife looking for a place to eat before they cross the next roaring highway, to rest before the next neighborhood maze. Urban sprawl continues to deplete prairie habitats. My education, particularly in the last year, has largely inspired this piece. U.S. history has shown me a prevalent American belief that land without immediate human use must be improved; we often think of Manifest Destiny as a relic, but it’s only a process so prevalent that it’s largely undebated, particularly in communities which pride themselves on fast urban growth. And as someone who participates in Literary Criticism, I’ve surrounded myself with poetry not only as an art form but as a window into the lives of creative pioneers and their environment; integrating a rhythm inspired by my much loved mid-late 19th century poetry, I connect to a time period in large part defined by the culture I discuss, and inject my own experiences as a modern American. I wanted to capture the perspective of those not-so-empty habitats, that while unable to fight back against zoning maps and machines, have endured the human entitlement “make use of them.” I hope that by continuing my work, I can agitate this seemingly obvious process within suburban communities like my own. Nature has long been essential to poetry; I believe poetry can help to repay her.