Paper

I write on the fingers and fractions of fingers

my Uncle Slim lost to the Champion machines.

I write on the Fiberville duplex by the Pigeon

where he and his wife raised a skinny family.

I write on that lethal river, its downstream liquor

snaking like venom all the way to Tennessee.

I write on the stench seeping up the valleys,

the first thing smelled each morning, hours away.

I write on the bitter laugh of my aunt, who said,

"Oh, you get used to the smell after a while."

I write on the smoke of my uncle's cigarette

clutched between stubs on his huge right hand.

I write on my father's father, killed at the mill

in an accident nobody alive can quite remember.

I write on that smoldering mill, a set for hell,

its mountains of pulp and infinitesimal men.

I write on blood, on clear-cut, on a watermark

lost to light. I write on transfigured paper.