Southbound

Gravity –
like tops and turves,
feverish strains of folk songs
from weed-ridden Carolina backyards,
weighs down on wasted words, on
forbidden sex; illicit atheism.

In the South, it never gets cold. In the South, we mourn our sins.

**

Menacing smiles shroud me in
angry, deep summer glare.

Remnants of blood off the Ivory Coast,
splattered, splintered on hard black rocks.

Strange chill; I am too near to genocide to
fathom – all the empty skulls; phantom people
praying in pain; death resides here, amidst
the vultures.

Still metal glint of the machete; a half-dead scream
left behind as ghastly echo.

I am too tan to be seen amidst the sands; I would
like to forget my ancestors and disappear amidst
a sigh.

Without even footprints to
trace my scars.

Without a whisper.

In the South, it never gets cold. In the South, we mourn our sins.

**

I do not know which is the world I inhabit.
I do not know.
I do not know which is the world that should be.