sockmonkey

Wind, here, again.
Enough to make me buy another thrift store sweater
that will be given away in another two weeks,
and to give my Chinese food to the black man
with a baby and house slippers.

My grandfather told me about the slave graveyards,
when I was little.
And he told me why hushpuppies are called such.
How the slaves were not allowed to bury their dead,
and how when they ran up the side of that creek, there,
they kept those cornbread lumps to throw,
when dogs had been set on them.

He used to take me out to an acre on our farm,
where there was an old slave graveyard,
and he'd say, "Margo,"
cuz that was my name, then,
"Say hello to the ghosts of the slaves."
And, I would.
And an echo came back to me.

And then he would tell me to tell them
that I loved them.
And I would.
An echo came back for that, too.

Then he said to do the same,
"Hello," and "I love you!" for the bears.

An echo answered then, too.
And I would always say, "Papa,"
cuz that was his name then...
"Now, you say it!"

But he said that it was something that only I had.
He said that it was special.
He said they only answered me.

And he said that I would never have trouble
with the ghosts of slaves or bears.

I never have.

So, when my mom sternly told me tonight,
"Margret..."
cuz that was my name then...
"You can't just walk up to a strange black man!
You'll be killed, one day!"

I had to think, laughing, cuz that is my way, now,

No. I won't be killed. not by a black man or a bear.
And no~one kills a woman with Chinese food in hand.

And, how is it, that this woman was raised by that man,
And, she could still say something like that to me, now?

~blue where it should be blue~
~Cake. cuz that's my name, now~

Robots
Old Circus and Carnival Things
And Freaks
Clowns
Old Signs
Roads That Go No~where Forever
Old Glass
Ravens
Little Skeletons of Things
The Smell of Old Books
Carvings
Icons
Tiny Trees
Insane Controlless Vines
Salt
Impossible Love
Hidden things... Secrets
Like maybe Wings
waiting for just the right time,
to be needed and then used...
Perhaps they would take a sacrafice of pain to be found,
and perhaps they would require the trust of a friend,
to cut them out of your back...
surely, you could not do that by yourself.
And the sacrafice of a friend to do the cutting.
That would be difficult.