As if a rainbow edged underneath;
Centipedes & unnameable
Insects sank into loam
With a flutter. My first lesson:
Beauty can bite. I wanted
To touch scarlet pincers—
Warriors that never zapped
Their own kind, crowded into
A city cut off from the penalty
Of sunlight. The whole rotting
Determinism just an inch beneath
The soil. Into the darkness
Of opposites, like those racial
Fears of the night, I am drawn again,
To conception & birth. Roots of ivy
& farkleberry can hold a board down
To the ground. In this cellular dirt
& calligraphy of excrement,
Light is a god-headed
Law & weapon.
A Good Memory
1 Wild Fruit
I came to a bounty of black lustre
One July afternoon, & didn’t
Call my brothers. A silence
Coaxed me up into oak branches
Woodpeckers had weakened.
But they held there, braced
By a hundred years of vines
Strong & thick
Enough to hang a man.
The pulpy, sweet musk
Exploded in my mouth
As each indigo skin collapsed.
Muscadines hung in clusters,
& I forgot about jellybeans,
Honeycomb, & chocolate kisses.
I could almost walk on air
The first time I couldn’t get enough
Of something, & in that embrace
Of branches I learned the first
Secret I could keep.
2 Meat
Folk magic hoodooed us
Till the varmints didn’t taste bitter
Or wild. We boys & girls
Knew how to cut away musk glands
Behind their legs. Good
With knives, we believed
We weren’t poor. A raccoon
Would stand on its hind legs
& fight off dogs. Rabbits
Learned how to make hunters
Shoot at spiders when headlighting.
A squirrel played trickster
On the low branches
Till we were our own targets.
We garnished the animal’s
Spirit with red pepper
& basil as it cooked
With a halo of herbs
& sweet potatoes. Served
On chipped, hand-me-down
Willow-patterned plates.
We weren’t poor.
If we didn’t say
Grace, we were slapped
At the table. Sometimes
We weighed the bullet
In our hands, tossing it left
To right, wondering if it was
Worth more than the kill.
3 Breaking Ground
I told Mister Washington
You couldn’t find a white man
With his name. But after forty years
At the tung oil mill, coughing up old dust,
He only talked butter beans & okra.
He moved like a sand crab.
Born half-broken, he’d say
If I didn’t have this bad leg
I’d break ground to kingdom come.
He only stood erect behind
The plow, grunting against
The blade’s slow cut.
Sometimes he’d just rock
Back & forth, in one place,
Hardly moving an inch
Till the dirt gave away
& he stumbled a foot forward,
Humming “Amazing Grace.”
Like good & evil woven
Into each other, rutabagas
& Irish potatoes came out
Worm-eaten. His snow peas
Melted on tender stems,
Impersonating failure.
To prove that earth can heal,
He’d throw his body
Against the plow
