gertrude logan,
etc. Flesh & metaphor.
Sizzling iron, initials,
whole families branded
as private property.
I am taken back
to where torture chambers
crank up at midnight
like gothic gristmills
in the big house
& black tarantulas
of blood cling to faces
where industrial
revolution repeatedly
groans in the brain.
Family Tree
I know better
than a whip
across my back,
eyes swearing
all the pain. Her father
cut down so young
in this stone garden.
She knows how easy death
takes root in a love song.
That long chain
in the red dust.
Geechee
bloodholler—
my mother
married at 15,
with my ear pressed
against the drum.
When my father speaks
of childhood, sunlight
strikes a plowshare.
Across the cotton field
Muddy Waters’ bone-song
rings true when my father speaks
of Depression winters
& a wheel within a wheel.
My great-grandmama’s name
always turns up
like a twenty-dollar
gold piece.
Born a slave,
how old her hands were.
When my father speaks
of hanging trees
I know
all the old prophets
tied down in the electric chair.
My grandmamas—
Sunday night
Genesis to Revelations
testimonial hard line
neo-auction block
women. Kerosene
lamps & cherry-red
potbellied wood stoves
& chopping cotton
sunup to sundown
mule-plowing black-metal
blues women grow closer
each year like bent oaks
to the ground. Both still
look you in the eyes
& say, “You gotta eat
a pound of dirt
’fore you can go
to heaven.”
Uncle Jesse
would show up
after a rainstorm
some tin-roof night
after two years
working turpentine camps,
pine scent in his clothes—
shove a wad of greenbacks
into Grandmama’s apron pocket.
A Prince Albert
cigarette between two fingers,
Old Crow on his breath,
that .38 Smith & Wesson
under his overalls jumper,
& the click-click of dice
& bright shuffle of cards.
Just a few things he learned at 17
in World War I.
Family tree,
taproot,
genealogy of blues.
We’ve seen shadows
like workhorses
limp across ghost fields
& heard the rifle crack.
Blackbirds
blood flowered
in the southern sun.
Brass tambourines,
octave of pain
clear as blood on a silent mirror.
Someone close to us
dragged away in dawnlight
here in these iron years.
Instructions for Building Straw Huts
First you must have
unbelievable faith in water,
