The **** crowed once…

He enters my store
nervously, cautiously examining
the merchandise on the shelves.

At least two decades
stretch between style and his clothes—

His wife follows demurely,
her feed sack dress presents
hand stitching, beautifully done,
to even my unqualified eye.

And then he speaks:
       Hi
followed by presentation of an item
clearly worthless to my trained eye.

We’d like to talk to someone
   about selling this please?

Procedure grants
no empathy, just rejection.

Business is for profit, after all.
And softly, sadly as they leave,
he articulates their purpose:
     We just needed something for groceries.

My chest tightens.
I did not grant them reprieve.

The **** crowed twice…

The lady approaches:
black skin, blue jeans
dingy
shirt and hair in disarray.

I look away.
Insistently she speaks,

     Sir, can I help you
     load those bags?

What's the angle?
     A few dollars is all I ask.
I’m-sorry-the-task-
is-done,
(though clearly I’ve just begun)

My children wait in the car;
I can hear them playing,
when next she speaks:
My kids are hungry.

My heart skips at the quivering lips
before me.
She walks away unfulfilled.

I await the third sounding.

I only caught a passing moment of their conversation, but the dyed redhead, bowed black face hidden behind her tresses, clearly remarked, I'm part Irish. That's white. while the boy beside her captured her every movement with sarcastic circular motions of his imaginary camera, and something in the taste of the air took me back to the iciness of the cell.

Long after the guard clanged the iron door shut, letting the reverberations fade into the silence of small spaces so evident in the 10x6 enclosed room, I heard her.  In truth, recollection deceives me in associating my first awareness of her with an impossible remembrance: a womanly scent flowing on a non-existent gust between her cell and mine.  But no, it was definitely the distinct, distant quality in her voice as she softly called Who's there? that caused me to press my ear tightly against cold iron in eager anticipation.  Hello was all I mustered. She responded in relieved tones with tales of abuse, pimps and prostitution, all mixed with crack bumps measured in metricities that would have made her high school math teacher proud.  For hours her voice echoed through the halls of the jail, pausing only for an occasional guttural response Uh-huh or, Uh-uh before continuing her tragic, comforting tale.  

Eventually day broke and I left the cell-- left the girl locked away, nameless, out of sight.  And, I would have forgotten.  I would have never searched every face wondering:  if I close my eyes and listen, would the voice that still echoes in my head present itself in a stranger's features?

and then that summer I found the remnants
of the tree house, decaying in the upper
branches of the tree in the farthest corner

of the pasture, and I played quiet violent
games there, far away from humanity,
out with the rest of the cattle, searching

for something real in the feel of the wood steps
nailed deep through the bark of the tree
into the ringed years existing long

before I arrived on this open land
of 22 acres, so far from the city-home
that birthed me, and often I would climb

those steps to the nothing that once was something,
imagining that just this once the timbers
would un-rot, and I would find myself
basking in the secret solitude of the fortress

out of time

I woke
Crouched behind the cozy recliner
Upon which Sherry soundlessly slept--

My arms cradled still my fantasy weapon,
The might of dreams, futilely brought into reality
When a tiny voice raised in fear from the girls' room cried

Daddy No!

And I knew
Once more I would engage my enemy
Sacrificing my body for their innocence.

They came for us today:
A lady dressed in tan
and the police man

Whose black skin insulted my fuming father
More than the smell of *****-tainted children
Offended the Worker whose perfume
Attempted to forcibly overcome us all--

My sisters succumbed quickly, escorted
Hastily from sight, hidden forever
But I was a soldier and so I fought
Until finally the official grip became irresistible

Mommy No!

In shock  she released our shared grip
And I was ripped up and away
Forgiveness lost forever to willful surrender.

The steady irregular beat given by the road
Through the tires resonated above the hum
Of travel with an intermittent

Fwap Fwap Fwap

Called out its message in indecipherable code
While I counted the lines
Drawn in yellow upon the asphalt
Alternating the spasms of my secretly tapping feet--

1 2, 1 2 3 4, always even, but never zero
Striving to force a pattern upon a world
That had none.

I know

The scene through the pane of glass exudes Winter
And should I choose to step into the outside world
To leave the comfort of my temperate prison,
Then cold would soon seep through me

I know

The trees do not bow to the wind;
The snow has not settled upon the ground;
No sign of Jack extends
To this seeming common surround.

Still I know.

I thought it clever to tilt the camera
But if I had it to do again I would take it straight.

Perhaps oblivion waits
At the end of an inward pointed gun
Yet what will the execution
Of the act accomplish once I realize the goal
And find myself still musing on the core
I know.

By chance we sat close that night as the light
faded, leaving that just-before-rain spirit
pervading the air with nature's answer
to expectations of brilliant designs
soon to fill the heavens with their display
of ruthless radiance fused with honor,

and when the first boom crashed, then you honored                                                    
the hot pursuing trail of blazing light
by squealing with delight in a display
of faux-female mystique while the spirits
of that just-so spot atop your head, designed
to muddle my mind, silently answered

longings I felt when your eyes sought answers
to my quick withdrawal-- No, I honor  
you too much to indulge secret designs--
but the fury of sound melted the light
nascent in dark orbs as we tasted spirits
of sulfur from the forgotten display's

willful efforts to prune our own display--
happy intrusions ordained to answer
pride bursting from our bodies' caged spirits--
national prompts calling, Present! Honor
the ones privileged to die for the light
reflected deep in the inner design

of her still questioning eyes designed
in palpable deference to displays
emasculate now in the lessened light,
overcome by the thickened smoke-answer
overflowing our lungs with no honor
for imagined sanctities of spirit,

and then the sky tore, releasing spirits
in sudden gallons naturally designed
to drown mystical visions in honor
of reality, the potent display
inherent in terrestrial answers--
non-reflective of superior light.

when introspection answers to design,
when spirit surpasses worldly light,
then displays of honor must burst their forms;

must give way to neck-chilling encounters
with an intangible, marvelous truth.

For years
the square inner courtyard,
surrounded by sky-reaching apartment complexes,
accessible only through brief

openings

between the buildings
whose windows looked down
soullessly upon our child's play,
contained my entire world,

and I did not perceive any difference
in the hands, faces, and seasonal limbs
of my friends--

But when I returned
the openings had closed,

the courtyard inaccessible
to an unrecognizable Cincinnati child
whose white face and green eyes
brought only memories--
1884, 1929, 1944, 1967,

and angry April showers
that drowned disapproving windows
in curfews of 2001.

And I do understand.

But,

Would the windows open if they knew
there's black in my line,
way back in my line,
from a time when ships like the Delta Queen--

sailed the Middle Passage
monikered in false virtue
granted by titles like Henrietta Marie--
brought African queens instead of slot machines--

when the fields of mud ran with blood
hemorrhaged from Makhulu's
innocence forcibly stolen
by Grampa's lust.

Now I must window
watch my own daughter,
recalling the lesson
on the names of the week:

You know daddy,
someone just made those names up.

And I can see
beyond her blonde pig-tails--
the darkness of her eyes
recalls the act of shame--

coupled with the sharp wit
of a chained matriarch standing proudly
on the auction block declaring:

These waterways are all connected.

Full-voiced, thunderous
the voice of truth whispers

There was never nothing
Never, death in Raine's morgue

granted beauty
en terra firma--

Never, soldiers sprawled
like Fenton's bottles--

You object?
Yes, of course.

But still you drank the blood
while the dead soldiers piled up
surrounding your feet.

Never, the steadily advancing rhythm
of hands meeting, unintentionally
speeding up while their voices
intone faster and faster:

Miss Susie had a steamboat,
the steamboat had a bell.
Miss Susie went to heaven,
the steamboat went to -

He'll be fine they said
or at least well-read

And who knows?
Maybe he'll learn to bestow
aesthetics to evil.