Carson Wolfe

Hell for Certain

It’s beautiful, you could raise a family there,
but i ain’t never met so many men
that didn't speak, or eat, ‘cept biscuits
from a can. coffee till noon—then beer.
and at night, out past the second trailer
in the barn—moonshine. these men
in ragged blue mechanic shirts with names
that weren’t theirs sewn to the chest,
probably wondered what the hell
i was doing there, strange british girl,
but none of them ever said nothin,
sat out on the old picnic bench,
fussing over their firearms,
my throat dry at the mere sight of them.
with tenderness, they took their weapons
apart, spent afternoons polishing barrels
with hoppe’s no. 9. holed up down nowhere
kentucky, why’d they need all that ammo?
eventually i had a folk band on my t-shirt
and a Smith an Westin in my waistband.
the first gun i shot there was an AR-15.
they set up an exploding target for me,
i hit it first time.

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Carson Wolfe is a Mancunian poet and winner of New Writing North’s Debut Poetry Prize (2023). Their work has appeared with Rattle, The Rumpus, The North, The Common, Best New Poets and is forthcoming with POETRY. They were longlisted in The Poetry Society’s National Competition (2023) and have received awards from The Aurora Poetry Prize, The Edward Thomas Fellowship and Button Poetry.