Neon Vernacular. Yusef Komunyakaa

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 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