Sorghum
Buggs Island Lake, North Carolina

By Berwyn Moore

The summer we drove to Buggs Island Lake,
my sister and I sat in the back seat, catching

whiffs of honeysuckle and watermelon
while our father played tour guide,

enlightening us on the postcard-perfect
displays of the lives we rolled past:

tobacco fields dotted with bent brown
backs and red kerchiefs, curing barns

where smoke curled from the chimneys
to a flat July sky; crooked shacks hovering

along the roadside, their tin roofs glaring
in the sun, some with weathered porches

and empty rockers, and small yards beaten
smooth as dough where scrawny dogs

slept in the heat; then, the sorghum,
broom-stems as high as the corn

and clustered at the top with dark flowers,
Red Top African, he said, or Milo Maize,

their stems thick with sap, ready for pressing.
He stopped the car at a road-side stand

and three children wearing dull t-shirts
stretched across their chests and britches

the color of hot sand dashed into the picture.
Our father rose from the car, his Panama hat

and sunglasses poised like a movie star's,
took long, even strides toward an old woman

sitting on a crate, and spread open his billfold.
He returned with two quart jars, sticky

and clear-bubbly brown, handed one
to each of us. As he pulled away,

we turned and caught their dark eyes
in ours, held for a moment their questioning,

and we knew, even before tasting it,
that this sweet does not satisfy.