Ham
hock in a mess o’ greens and the reaping season. Trains like ghost loiterings
and the fields of locust seizure. That’s when the dust will come. No one knows
where those beggar men hail from. Bare feet on the dirt yard and Thy will be
done. Behind him on that ‘Ssippi road shadows slow coming down like the flood
of sin. Then - shoulder blades jutting up like Thunderbird fins. See
gravel-stung cream Cadillacs and bird dogs panting in pickup beds. Looking
anywhere but those filthy bum hands and darkness eyes housed in crazy heads.
And
Cato said Carthage must be destroyed.
And
so the Devil take the hindmost and let the righteous fill the void.
So
Carthage must be destroyed.
Behind
little boy Momma says you better come back.
Scared, he thinks - lone blue China plate and that pair of tight church
shoes, barely black. But he tucks into a stairwell behind the frayed screen
door, smelling cathead biscuits in the iron skillet of the upturned linoleum
kitchen floor. Still that rolly milk-fat
baby of rural fame. Momma beckons beggar man and makes little boy wait.
Thinking - Jesus, hunger, pride and keeping it all straight.
And
Hannibal said we find a way or we make one.
And
so we see the world wrong and the pride of men all undone.
So
we find a way or we make one.
Momma
fed beggar man off the porch because his kind can’t come in. Little boy sees
preacher man sweat, smells taste of gin. Remembers a God of tongues and stones and
salt and swine. Runs upstairs, grabs church shoes, says take them, they’re
mine. Beggar man gone and Momma gone mad. No dinner and a whooping for being
real bad. Knocked upside head hoping man, tomorrow I’ll be grown. Secret wish
for Daddy but the traveling evangelist finds his roots in God alone.
And
Momma’s saying foxes have dens and birds have nests
But
the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.
And
beggar man’s gone to keep up that hunt
Saying
ain’t nothing goes up over the Devil’s back what don’t come up his front.
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