Alanreed

Janelle Curlin-Taylor

April 14, 2024

“Where are your people from?” she inquired,

her voice as arched and pointed as that left eyebrow.

Twenty years in California had softened

my flat Panhandle accent. Was I really a Texas native?

“Alanreed,” I said nervously.

“Never heard of it” she announced.

“Get the Atlas.”

The Atlas, close as a kleenex box in spring

emerged from the side of the couch.

Alanreed:

Site of the oldest cemetery on Highway 66.

550 souls, including my young uncle

died of pneumonia.  Grandpa made him

fetch in the chickens in an afternoon rainstorm.

He was already sick.

Grandpa was a Victorian poet

admiring Emerson, given to prolonged trips to Austin

for books and dapper attire,

Justice of the Peace, dry land farmer

house full of children, frightened and often hungry.

What drew this prolific Texas poet to Alanreed

from his birthplace in Salado?

Did poetry gush from the pristine spring

that flowed into the springtank, giving the town its early name?

Was there poetry for both eye and tongue encased

in the ruby flesh of each watermelon plucked from the fields,

500 car loads a year down the Choctaw, Oklahoma, and Texas tracks.

Alanreed, home to the Gouge Eye Saloon.

Choctaw and Comanche once hunted buffalo here

life shattered by muskets in the 1880s.

10,000 years ago a forest – now petrified.

Alanreed: population 23.

Janelle Curlin-Taylor, a Texas poet living in Tennessee, inherited the poetry gene from her grandfather and her mother. Published in various Texas journals and anthologies, she is grateful for Texas Poetry Assignment for keeping Texas and poetry close.  She is married to California poet Jeffrey Taylor.