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 each day, pushing
Like a small man entering a big woman.
4 Soft Touch
Men came to her back door & knocked.
Food was the password. When switch engines
Stopped & boxcars changed tracks
To the sawmill, they came like Gypsies,
A red bandanna knotted at the throat,
A harmonica in the hip pocket of overalls
Thin as washed-out sky. They brought rotgut
Drought years, following some clear-cut
Sign or icon in the ambiguous
Green that led to her back porch
Like The Black Snake Blues.
They paid with yellow pencils
For crackling bread, molasses, & hunks
Of fatback. Sometimes grits & double-yolk
Eggs. Collard greens & okra. Louisianne
Coffee & chicory steamed in heavy white cups.
They sat on the swing & ate from blue
Flowered plates. Good-evil men who
Ran from something or to someone,
A thirty-year headstart on the Chicago hawk
That overtook them at Castle Rock.
She watched each one disappear over the trestle,
As if he’d turn suddenly & be her lost brother
Buddy, with bouquets of yellow pencils
In Mason jars on the kitchen windowsill.
5 Shotguns
The day after Christmas
Blackbirds lifted like a shadow
Of an oak, slow leaves
Returning to bare branches.
We followed them, a hundred
Small premeditated murders
Clustered in us like happiness.
We had the scent of girls
On our hands & in our mouths,
Moving like jackrabbits from one
Dream to the next. Brandnew
Barrels shone against the day
& stole wintery light
From trees. In the time it took
To run home & grab Daddy’s gun,
The other wing-footed boys
Stumbled from the woods.
Johnny Lee was all I heard,
A siren in the flesh,
The name of a fallen friend
In their wild throats. Only Joe
Stayed to lift Johnny’s head
Out of the ditch, rocking back
& forth. The first thing I did
Was to toss the shotgun
Into a winterberry thicket,
& didn’t know I was running
To guide the paramedics into
The dirt-green hush. We sat
In a wordless huddle outside
The operating room, till a red light
Over the door began pulsing
Like a broken vein in a skull.
6 Cousins
Figs. Plums. Stolen
Red apples were sour
When weighed against your body
In the kitchen doorway
Where late July
Shone