Legacy of Vigilance
mami wears a head wrap
on a cornmeal bag
brought in from Mexico
at the everyday is different store
She coulde be
from Cuba
Puerto Rico
West Indies
Mississippi
she could be Jewish
she could be
she could be
knot of two peaks
Blackness
cotton fields
bent back
underfed bones
raped coral reef
hush child
grown women called girls
whipping post erections
born in West Africa
dragged by the uterus
to America
Mami tells me cornbread is medicine
conjured in the black skillet
passed down through generations
a story lives by flame
skillet goes down hard
cracks open the dawn
genuine laughter waters the fields at last
cleansing rain, every drop a lotus
Nature’s forensics on the side of good
evidence feeds the next batch of cotton
roots slurp up the blood
the bastard falls
horses content to dent
the rubbish of pain
Into a new season’s mulch
blissful silence carries
descants of munching
the reddest of apples
freedom sweet like a hymn
of praise, of thanks
hard fist of bread
hides in a pocket
in the burning
in the freezing
railroad outruns vengeance
Mami stares out from
from a sample bag
brought in from Mexico
at that every day is different store
she is with me
in the running
In the burning
in the freezing
in the butter
spreading wide
in the hot skillet
ready, always ready