Robert Beveridge
Rising from the Red Sand
I was somewhere around Plain on the edge
of Canton when the Adderall began to take hold.
The northern border of the city was enmeshed
in a blue mist, quite unlike the cloudless sun
of Green, of Uniontown, of even Akron.
I passed through the barrier, parked, pulled on
the blue work shirt embroidered with somebody
else’s name, took up position at my cauldron.
Today we make soup for the patients. Root
vegetables, herbs, forbidden rice, mushroom stock,
ativan. They ask, always, about the secret
ingredient, but under no circumstances are we
allowed to divulge the bills we burn, the ash
of cotton, of linen, that leaves the slightly bitter
aftertaste, the dust in your mouth that sets off
the acid from the tomato. We sometimes ask
them if they feel they belong; they sometimes
ask us the same thing. Neither of us has an answer.
About Robert Beveridge
Robert Beveridge makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Savant-Garde, Other People's Flowers, and The Indiana Horror Review, among others.