Sweetgum Country

Billy shows us his arm, burned by the sun
where pesticides sensitized his skin
those years of his childhood, playing
in Delta cotton fields. A charred,
hand-sized lozenge marks the tender crease
inside his elbow. Alex holds up her chart
that shows the sickness and death
in her mother’s family, from cancer
in Cancer Alley. She has made red circles
for “fought,” green crosses for “died,”
she has put stars around her name,
my pretty dark-haired student.