Fifty-Five Miles to the County Fair by Blake HC Mihm

Mrs. Slusser in the kitchen forging wannabe blue ribbon pies from second rate stone-fruit. That summer lightning struck her cherry tree but instead of catching fire it blackened the trunk and burnt the color out of fruit and flowers both. Mrs. Slusser had it on her mind that those pale to the pit cherries were something special, spent the whole month of July mixing and measuring and manufacturing a parade of pastries across her countertop. Pounds of Crisco and sugar bleached bone-char white. By August Mrs. Slusser has figured the secret to clasp a blue ribbon for Best Pie: red dye number nine.

Mr. Slusser scowling on the porch for two months because he cannot bear the blasphemy of bone-white cherries where color should be. He watches the blossoms drift like off-season snow around the prettiest man in the neighborhood, not pretty like he looks like a lady but pretty like he’s got plenty of practice looking good. Pretty boy will flatfoot clog down the walk in the dead of noon, two-step around his chihuahua and if the cherry blossoms catch a glimpse of him, it will be like the pied piper shook his ass across main street as the blooms blush back to pink and busk behind him to drown on the river-bank.

Mrs. Slusser comes home in a huff with a red ribbon, a rudely awakened fury, and scorn for over-seasoned off-season peach pies. Her husband? Nowhere to be seen. A hiss slides down the steps as Mrs. Slusser opens a bottle of beer, though she seems stone cold sober so perhaps it’s only a soda. By dusk Mr. Slusser skulks up the walk, wet to the waist and reeking of river water. Her cries hit him like notes from honky-tonk piano keys, shattered glass chases him down the black-top macadam as he waltzes away with quick feet and only a broom for a partner.

Blake HC Mihm is an emerging writer who lives in southwestern Virginia with his two dogs. His work has been featured in Lilac Peril, BULL, and Dishsoap Quarterly, and is upcoming in OUCH! Collective and West Trade Review. He was selected as one of the poets for DC Pride Poems 2024. You can read more of his writing at: blakehc.wordpress.com.

Photo via Library of Congress Prints