issue 7
// poetry
Hardy County Blues
by Tucker Riggleman
The South Branch Valley is negative space,
an inverse absence of sky.
Obsidian falls from those eternal mountains
each night, darkness so heavy
I don’t know how I ever managed
to crawl out from under it.
I’ve been no saint. This place dug its claws
into me every visit as a young adult.
Taking too much because I felt too much,
driving blind-drunk down snake-
coiled roads. A country boy can (barely)
survive. Many did not.
We all know the truth when the cause of death
is omitted from the obituary.
You can hear the awkward pause
when they are read on the Fisher station
each Sunday, the organ music warbling
in the background.
The “survived-by” list full of parents,
grandparents, folks who shouldn’t
have to bury the young, but this darkness
doesn’t pick favorites. The dirt
is always hungry.
about the author // Tucker Riggleman
| Tucker Riggleman’s writing lives in small moments. Concise, emotional, and rooted in place, his work finds inspiration in the rural landscapes and communities of his youth: the mamaw kitchens, beer joints, and endless backroads to nowhere. As a touring musician for the past 20+ years and a person in recovery, both music and sobriety make frequent appearances in his writing. Tucker received a 2025 WV Creative Network Literary Arts Fellowship for poetry. |
wildscape. literary journal 