some of our names
are meant to fill
the lungs and mouth,
to dance like dust on the
walls and faces
before settling
on the furniture
and floors.
i was a half a mile
down the road
by the time i heard
my own clamor
mispronounced
from the mouth
of the white woman
at channel four.
banging its way
around my grandmother’s
dining room,
into the framed faces of
aunts and cousins and uncles.
common delta folk regal in
their
some dead,
some dying like me.
i was a half mile
down the road, my
name now worming
my lungs
and mouth,
sitting down
hard on my breath.
long gone before it reached
my grandmother,
crooked and bent
by the white anchor’s
evening voice.
Lord knows why they
think they gotta talk
like that.
was chest high
in the Mississippi
by the time i could
hear her ask
asked what i’d done.
