By Andrew Hudgins
When we first heard from blocks away
the fog truck’s blustery roar,
we dropped our toys, leapt from our meals,
and scrambled out the door
into an evening briefly fuzzy.
We yearned to be transformed—
translated past confining flesh
to disembodied spirit. We swarmed
in thick smoke, taking human form
before we blurred again,
turned vague and then invisible,
in temporary heaven.
Freed of bodies by the fog,
we laughed, we sang, we shouted.
We were our voices, nothing else.
Voice was all we wanted.
The white clouds tumbled down our streets
pursued by spellbound children
who chased the most distorting clouds,
ecstatic in the poison.
Andrew Hudgins, "In" from Ecstatic in the Poison. Copyright © 2003 by Andrew Hudgins. Published in 2003 by The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc. New York, NY, www.overlookpress.com. All rights reserved.
Source: Ecstatic in the Poison (The Overlook Press, 2003)
Poet Bio
Although born into a military family that moved frequently, Andrew Hudgins’s roots in the South and as a Southern Baptist have remained with him. His narrative poetry, often darkly humorous, has a firm base in Southern culture. Hudgins’s first collection, Saints and Strangers, was short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize.
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