Tuesday, February 17, 2015

I play car with the radio martyrs

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