{"id":485,"date":"2025-05-08T21:26:36","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T01:26:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/?p=485"},"modified":"2025-05-08T21:26:36","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T01:26:36","slug":"colleen-j-mcelroy-monologue-for-saint-louis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/archives\/485","title":{"rendered":"Colleen J. McElroy, &#8220;Monologue for Saint Louis&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Monologue for Saint Louis<\/em><br \/>\nby Colleen J. McElroy<\/p>\n<p>home again and the heart barely there<br \/>\nwhen choked by clusters of words<br \/>\nthick as the clumps of blue-black<br \/>\ngrapes we snitched every summer<br \/>\nfrom the neighbor&#8217;s arbor<br \/>\nsucculent pockets of flesh laced<br \/>\nwith green staining our lips and fingers<\/p>\n<p>It is summer again and I am home<br \/>\nvowing penance for all my disappearances<br \/>\nsince that first summer<br \/>\nwhen the arbor was clotted<br \/>\nwith pockets of grapes latticed on each<br \/>\ninterlocking vine<\/p>\n<p>now earthworms have trellised the arbor<br \/>\nand that crumbling heap of rotting black<br \/>\nsticks cannot shield us from wind or words<br \/>\nwe are the women we whispered about each summer<br \/>\nfamiliar houses and schoolyards have disappeared<br \/>\nchildhood streets are blocked with singular black<\/p>\n<p>one-way signs aligned like a lacework<br \/>\nof warnings or accusing fingers<br \/>\nI am home again<br \/>\nand my cousins sit in their cloaks of black<br \/>\nskin dragging me through twisted vines<br \/>\nof genetic maps thick with childhood vows<\/p>\n<p>they remember each summer<br \/>\nhow each year I vowed to return home<br \/>\nforever but I am lost in a riddle of words<br \/>\nhome is a vacant lot its back yard clotted<br \/>\nwith a stainless-steel arch and clusters<br \/>\nof tiny parks sprouting like trelliswork<\/p>\n<p>enclosing some strange summer<br \/>\nresort my cousins of disappeared<br \/>\ninto like the shadows of beasts and bad air<br \/>\nthat infect this flat country and I am home<br \/>\na stranger in love with words<br \/>\nwith tart sweet clusters of poems<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monologue for Saint Louis by Colleen J. McElroy home again and the heart barely there when choked by clusters of words thick as the clumps of blue-black grapes we snitched every summer from the neighbor&#8217;s arbor succulent pockets of flesh laced with green staining our lips and fingers It is summer again and I am [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":486,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions\/486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}