This is one of the nine wide worlds, and the creatures that inhabit it lullAuthor(s): STACY KIDDSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Winter 2009/10), p. 138Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20722064 .

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STACY KIDD

This is one of the nine wide worlds, and the creatures that inhabit it lull

First of all, it isn't tenderhearted.

Boys are as small as their fathers' fingers, their tongues stained

with wild plum, their faces vapid little things all the way from West Texas, a place even wilder than this

wind where the river appears

only an inch deep. If you look

near the surface, the boys

might betray light that leans in from backwoods for a can of snuff

or stick of black-jack if

that's all you have. They'll tell you about the calf cut last December

from the ice, but in the case

of their own lives, they'll grow quiet, and the quiet will grow like nails

from the tips of their fingers, and the stillness will scratch at anything.

This content downloaded from 62.122.72.52 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 18:19:01 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions