I arrive from the woods
at the beginning of the last
week of summer covered
with so many stick-tights
that I will have to throw
my shirt away.

I arrive from the woods
with a stick-tight bouquet
of wild flowers picked from
the field by the creek bed where
cow plops have turned into clumps
of blossoms.

I arrive from the woods
in the stiff breeze of seasonal
change to lay out on the table under
the swaying locust each species and
remember that my book of botanical
identification rests atop the pantry.

I arrive in the kitchen
to cornbread baking
and my wife’s reaction:
“Look at you, stick-tight man.
What on earth do you need?
Look at you, stick-tight man.
You’ve finally gone to seed!”

–Jim Lally,
Stick Tight Man (2010)
Accents Publishing

• “Stick Tight Man: An Appreciation” by Matthew Haughton

Jim Lally is a Kentucky poet known for his curly white beard and straggly ponytail. He is a member of the Poets’ Supper, Poezia, and Holler writers’ groups as well as the founding member of Writers at Artcroft. He graduated with a degree in English from Brescia College where he was the editor of the school’s first literary magazine. Jim has been the Spoken Word artist at the Walk for the Arts in Berea for the last two years. He is a partner with his wife, Jennifer Gleason, in the organic farm business of Sunflower Sundries. His poetry ranges from the irregularly scattered to the tangle of