If Prepared,
​by Rachel Nix

I’d sit & watch my grandmother watch her yard
when I was a kid. She was always eying everyone

& everything—seeing it all for what it was, calling
certain folks what no one else would. Back then

I was hardly different, with my youth's too-much-trust
that hindered. I called my father my daddy, had a fear

of tree frogs, & hadn't yet figured out there's nothing
of nuisance about weeds, the flowers for our kind.

I knew then the obvious: the sun'll rise but for no one
in particular, likely out of practice or habit. Grandmother,

wise to what mattered, taught me to do the same: to rise
& eye anyone who made attempt to bring trouble.

The best of lessons, for when mending lacks grace:
keep a lighter. She'd imply to be handy, to light

someone's smokes; it was in her grin she meant
if prepared, I could burn anything down to its truth.

​NEXT

Rachel Nix is an editor for Hobo Camp Review and Screen Door Review. Her work has appeared in Pidgeonholes, Sundog Lit, and Up the Staircase Quarterly. She resides in Northwest Alabama and tweets at @rachelnix_poet.