Jim Ross
Patrick Pendergast*
tends his spit of land,
his scrabble patch with
more care than he shows
his ten children. He scumbles
and skitters and turns that
turf over and over again.
He reaps a crop of Irish Lumpers
from that unforgiving ground,
feeds his family for a year.
Each day-potatoes, potatoes, potatoes.
Each night, a draught of Guinness,
a dram of whiskey or a glass
of poitin to ease away the day.
Patrick is skint many a day,
but his family is fed, have fire,
a roof above and four
thick walls around.
Curtains of rain drown Mayo
for weeks. Blue fog blankets
puddled potato fields, smell of
decay, a dank heavy wool knits
over the land. Black, his potato
crumbles to bits in his big hands.
A year of food falls through his
fingers. He digs through the dirt,
unearths only rot and ruin.
* Patrick is my third great-grandfather who left County Mayo for the United States in 1850.
A Baltimore-based artist and activist, Marceline White’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Orchard Review, The Indianapolis Review, Atticus Review, Snapdragon, Little Patuxent Review among others. She can often be found learning how to better serve her two cats, posting too many pictures of her garden, and reminding her son to text her when he arrives at the party. https://twitter.com/marcelineawhite.
Jim Ross jumped into creative pursuits in 2015 after rewarding research career. With a graduate degree from Howard University, in seven years he’s published nonfiction, fiction, poetry, photography, hybrid, and plays in over 175 journals on five continents. Photo publications include Barren, Burningword, Camas, DASH, Kestrel, Litro, Feral, Stonecoast, Sweet, and Typehouse. Jim and his wife split time between city and mountains.