Two Poems by Amorak Huey

THE BARN AT THE END OF THE PATH

Shelter—simple as that.
My mother with a hammer.
My grandfather atop a ladder.

Our need for warmth is outweighed
only by our hunger for structure.

Work-song, work-strong, work-weary.

A dozen creosote-coated poles,
a truckload of rough-cut lumber—

the barn this will become,
the barn it already used to be.

THE RABBIT CAGES UNDER THE GRAPE ARBOR

We learn to take what is offered,

we learn the duration of need:
latched-door and tin-roof,

summer-shade and spring-storm
and what it means to be relied on.

This canopy, our hands—

the pulse between
a surprise every time.

...

Amorak Huey, a former newspaper editor and reporter, is author of the poetry collection Ha Ha Ha Thump (Sundress, 2015) and the chapbooks The Insomniac Circus (Hyacinth Girl, 2014) and A Map of the Farm Three Miles from the End of Happy Hollow Road (Porkbelly, forthcoming in 2016). He teaches writing at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. His poems appear in The Best American Poetry 2012, The Southern Review, The Collagist, Oxford American, and elsewhere.