When I was young my people spoke in tongues that
Blessed and cursed–
My brethren, this ought not to be–
The ugliest and most brutal ignorance
Praised for speech. Men were scattered in the alley,
Their rimmed eyes subject to dogs’ tongues
And the scorn of Christian wives,

Boys sucking the last drops of whiskey, playing the
Staggering drunk at sunset, sucking the last cigarette,
Playing their own mill-worked futures, the light
Sleeping where it stood. I knew the terror
Of uncles who fell into shadows deeper than the
Wells of judgment. But let them find something to covet and
They would give a pretty for it, boasting
Great threats and promises behind the barn.

I remember the nasal howl of men with greasy veins
And snuff-throated wives singing sacred harp
Until the roads are red with the dust of their
Hymns and spit-shined execrations. O God,
Hear my prayer. It is now, it is the end of the 1950s,
This is the morning of the afternoon of desolation
And no terror is complete without a dole of
Old Testament verses spewed by a wild-eyed brayer
Rasping the familiar and mispronounced symmetry
Of curses.

And now the whiskey-breathing Sunday afternoon
Of a glazed male voice whipping Where’s my honey? –
And a woman’s small reply, a mother’s or daughter’s,
Or even a son’s–
And the small, whimpered prayer of undressing
While I cower behind the door, terrified by the sound
Of dogs and rats scratching under the floor.

My Heart is Growing Wings

The echocardiogram confirms it,
Specialists have been called in–
Ornithologists are coming from all over.
X-rays explain the pains in my chest are talons
Gripping the ribs, and the fluttering I hear
Is the aorta and ventricle stretching, taking on feather,
Growing each day more birdlike, less brokenhearted.
Nobody wants to talk about eventualities, but I know
The bird in my chest will break free, peck
Through the pericardial sac, smash the ribby cage, fly.
And I must admit, the prospects are intriguing.
Maybe I’ll go with this hawk-heart, soar beyond the
Mercury losses that poison the daily flesh.
Family members deny the facts, but I have
Arterial evidence, the voice of my pain
Is the cry of a fledgling, mouth open, frantic
For food. And each day the wings grow stronger.
The change is gradual–
You cannot see it on the surface of my chest,
But here, just beneath the nipple, an eye is forming.
And here, just below the muscle, quills
Dry in the breath I have exchanged for blood
All these years. Down in the red darkness
Where memory and hemoglobin clot,
In the caverns and hot caves of the heart, a wing.

Poetry Magazine