The Feed and Seed
This feed store, filled with fly bait
and the musty scent of alfalfa bundled,
centers the world of Josiah Smith,
known as Jelly Bean to every
Mesquite Bend local. He runs
the old munitions-factory-turned-city-heart,
this place where even the women
from the Tea Club gather
to share gossip and peppermint sticks
Jelly Bean keeps in a large, glass jar
on the wooden counter smoothed
by years of transactions filled with men’s sweat
and the honesty of a sturdily shaken hand.
Only Molly Nunnelly never ventures
into the aisles of threepenny nails
and cattle feed, through the inventory
of d-rings and nylon rope that Jelly Bean
carries in his very cells. Sweet Molly
who moons after Jack Long, the one
Molly has loved since all of them made mud pies
in the back of the cemetery, scaring
each other with stories about the ghosts
of scalped ancestors. Even after Roberta Watts
walked down the aisle with him, Molly still
watches Jack with dreamy eyes
Jelly Bean would give all
his coveted fly traps to own.
But Jelly Bean, well past thirty,
hopes as he watches Molly in her pew
every Sunday, her hair in perfect ringlets
hugging the stiff collars of her best dresses.
Only old Ben Hurley knows Josiah
is more man than any of them. Who
would answer to a childhood cruelty
except a man more than comfortable
in his lonely skin?
Ramona Levacy
April 4, 2015
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