Rebecca Parson

IN RAPPAHANNOCK COUNTY

We rode in the pickup,
lifted our arms in the wind,
and took off the hats put on us
by our grandmother, whose nose
had gotten skin cancer
and almost fallen off.
Did we want that
to happen to us?
Up and down the hills,
through the woods,
and past the church,
we practiced the hymn
our grandfather taught us
and took the road
to his friend, Mr. Jordan,
the man who couldn't get up
for church anymore.
We sang a hymn to him,
whose grandmother was a slave.
Going back we passed the barn.
Its paint from years ago
was old and worn,
and we saw underneath.

Rebecca Parson's poetry appears in Birmingham Poetry Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, and The Montreal Review. She is a recipient of scholarships and awards from the Sewanee Writers' Conference and the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University's MFA program, she lives in New Mexico.