Papa, Papa,
I've given up trembling
I'm ready to join a country club and trouble the ghosts beneath us with your mother's empty cassette cases my double inheritance my flare for rare tears I found them, her cases, filled with folded Angolan flags and pictures of you and Nixon and a doo rag in one, no music / we so country, papa, I was lunging into a field negro I wanted to spring loose from / papa I dropped to my knees trembling
and remembered how much you loved to watch westerns every night at dinner every night black man sits down with his family praying to cowboys and a damp slab of ham—Had I been, a loyal daughter / bend in the hero card and I understand you, I want my oppressors to save me too I want my oppressors to save me too
