Little Crow's Ear Nettled by the Slash-eyed…

I was born to a family wrapped

inside the wallpaper of two worlds,

drumming the other's disappearance.

My voice grew into an impulse of blood wars red and white.

Running between winter and spring

I awoke to a nightmare of spit and bile.

My grandfather said I must earn my tracks in the night.

The earth surged and oozed

with thunder, hail, and wind snakes

from its icy depths a rebirth;

the dark splintered and barked

the song my life's a fable,

a crow with toe in mouth,

a child tossed from the nest

clawing for cover like Trickster in diapers.

I watched our home change faces

every eviction and slammed door

more often than an octopus

in the throes of a shape shift.

The walls in our next house

slanted downward with the weight

of bandaged heads reeking of whiskey,

gin, wine and beer, our lives

a steady howling and gnashing at the drain.

As ragged as my boots

I hit the pavement like a clamshell

with the family for the umpteenth fool's parade.

By age thirteen I could bake bread

from the scorched earth of the weeping knots,

court sorrow like a lover and speak with crickets.

Source: Earth Vowels (Mongrel Empire Press, 2017)