An Ode to Texas Twang

Jesse Doiron

May 31, 2022

with Explanatory Notes

The voices of our Beaumont girls

prick like leaves of Wax Ligustrum.

“Have you ever had Drambuie

with black coffee?” Glenda asked.

The good ones drag a tongue

against gap teeth like a 

boot scrape on a porch of lips.

“I hear tell it’s an aphrodisiac.”

The drawl hangs in the air.

Like honeysuckle—sweet.

Like bunches of wisteria, 

all purpled up and full of bees.

She was married but not to me.

Like poison ivy, oak, and sumac,

itching everywhere that you can’t reach. 

“My husband’s working midnights.”

And when you listen long enough 

and close enough, 

with enough Drambuie and black coffee,

the twang becomes a piercing sigh—

and painfully enjoyable.

Jesse Doiron spent 13 years overseas in countries where he often felt as if he were a “thing” that had human qualities but couldn’t communicate them. He teaches college, now, to people a third his age. He still feels, often, as if he is a “thing” that has human qualities but can’t communicate them.