Carolina Prayer

Let the blood if your belly must have it, but let it

not be of me and mine. Let my momma sleep.

Let her pray. Let them eat. Let the reverend’s

devil pass over me. Let the odds at least

acknowledge us. Let the breasts be intact,

the insulin faithfully not far, and let the deep

red pinpoint puddle its urgency on a pricked

fingertip. Let the nurse find the vein the first time.

Let the kerosene flow and let my grandma praise

her bedside lord for letting her miss another winter.

Let me be just a little bit bitter so I remember:

Your columns and borders aint but the fractured,

the broke clean, the brownest gouges in the blades

of our great-great-great-shoulders. Let me leave

and come back when my chest opens for you wider

than your ditches did to engorge my placeless body.

The mosquito-thick breath in your throat coats my skin

and it almost feels as if you love me. Let the AC

drown out the TV. Let the lotion bottle keep a secret

corner til Friday. Let Ike, Wan, D-Block, all my brother’s

brothers ride through the weekend. Let the cop car

swerve its nose into night and not see none of them.

Let us smell rain. Let the breeze through an oak hymn

the promise that keeps us waking. Let the cicada

unwind while hushpuppy steam slips out the knot

of a tourist’s hand, and let him hear in it legends

of how hot grease kept the hounds and the lash at bay.