Mud Song

A landscape of pine forests, palmettos, gopher tortoises, and armadillos contains the clues that guide Terry Ann Thaxton’s search for herself. As a fifth-generation Floridian, she knows, however, that the natural world is never more than a stone’s throw away from its destruction. The path she follows takes her to the edge of the past’s sinkholes and the daily chaos of roads forever under construction. These poems make sharp turns. Trauma is never far from beauty, desire never far from fear, and images are often as surprising as they are stunning: “I know the value / of mud on a dog’s paw. I want to wake / and disappear into the minutes / where the crows fly. / I want someone / to leave me in the clouds / and carry my gown across the night.”