for A.H.
Everyone is born in a pit and raised
in a pit. Oh, your body might
have a pretty room with
Pottery Barn Teen stuff but you
aren't there, you're in a pit, and
you either learn to love it or you
climb the slick walls and fall
back down over and over until
you die. You may try to choose
the dream, imagine
that you live in that nest
of spun sugar but after a while
your tossing and turning will
flatten the handholds and you'll fall,
landing on your back
where it may occur to you
that a pit is not a bad place if
it's the only place, noting
for the first time the subtle texture
of the walls made by grubs and
ants and other dirt dwelling bugs
and the possibility
of scraping out a bed,
and some chairs,
becoming an expert at detailed, lovely
scraping, come to recognize
grime in the cracks
of your hands, beneath
your nails as wonder, grit
of the road, meadow,
creekbank collected as evidence
of potential, adult color bled
through your scabbed child’s skin.
~~
Matt Thomas is a smallholder farmer, engineer, and poet. His recent work can be read in Slab Magazine and Kestrel. ‘Cicada, Dog & Song,’ a second full length collection, will be published by Serving House Books in 2026. He lives with his family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
