Mississippi

death surrounds itself with the living

i watch them take the body from the house

i’m a young kid maybe five years old

the whole thing makes no sense to me

i hear my father say

lord jesus what she go and do this for

i watch him walk out the backdoor of the house

i watch him walk around the garden

kick the dirt

stare at the flowers

& shake his head shake his head

he shakes his head all night long

yazoo

jackson

vicksburg

we must have family in almost every city

i spent more time traveling than growing up

guess that’s why i’m still shorter than my old man

he don’t like to stay in one place much

he tell me

soon as people get to know your last name

seem like they want to call you by your first

boy if someone ask you your name

tell them to call you mississippi

not sippi or sip but mississippi

how many colored folks you know name mississippi

none see

now you can find a whole lot of folks whose

name is canada

just like you can find 53 people in any phone book

whose name is booker t. washington

your mother she was a smart woman

gave you a good name

not one of them abolitionist names

what you look like with a name like

john brown or william lloyd garrison

that don’t have no class

your mother she named you after the river

cause of its beauty and mystery

just like my mother named me nevada

cause she didn’t know where it was

Source: First Light: New and Selected Poems (1994)