R&B (audio only)
Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.
grand·fa·ther. (noun) 1. the father of one’s father or mother: As in, my father’s father, my grandfather, sharecropped on a farm in Midway, AL. Angry all the time, he fled to Ohio for cleaner work, but the same dirt beat him down through his day. 2. the person who founded or originated something: In 1832, Thomas D.
State of Florida v. Patrick Gene Scarborough, David Erwin Beagles, Ollie Odell Stoutamire, William Ted Collinsworth, 1959, case #3445.
Later I lower my head to my father’s chest,
the hollow where I hear his heart stop, if stop
meant speed to a stop, if hearts could gasp like a
a mouth when events stun the heart to a stop
for a moment. His eyes fill with anger
Sycorax
As if someone blew against the back of my neck,
I writhed up, becoming a wind myself,
and I flowed out the window of my bedroom.
Maybe I also emitted a moan over the croaking
of the frogs that night. Then I raised my arms
to the clouds, rooting my feet deep in the soil.
A stretch, I called it.