Ross Howerton

Oklahoman offspring from a famished legacy on the high plains,

a grassland of graves,

Who wonders, “What is this wondrous whitespace across which

the starved cows moo?”

Pensive sepia eyes, brown as dirt, passed from grandmother, to

daughter, to her firstborn,

Head of shaggy goldilocks like waving wheat, inherited strait

from his saintly, white-bearded granddaddy,

Same stubborn bone structure as Momma’s, swindler’s smile

stolen off his runaway father—

My self always frets, hollering into a wind-swept abyss, “Don’t

resemble the man I never knew!”

 

Ross Howerton is a poet and educator. He has a BA in literary studies from the New School and is currently pursuing a MFA in poetry at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, where he teaches writing. His work most recently appeared in the Naugatuck River Review and * 82 Review.