Night Song for Missy
My bones tied up with his bones at night,
him falling asleep in my arm after wrasslin me,
calling it love in some kind of low whisper
no dog would believe. I know his every smell,
every way the littlest corner of him be stinkin
underneath me, on top of me, while our children
snore in the corner, then he creep out the way
he creep in, before the cock crow at the sun.
In daylight he act like we strangers, on the edge
of the field, his little tan children of mine turning
brown, playing more than working cause they his
children, Missy look over at me while I look
over at her, both of us got some kind of papers
on this same man that say he own both of us,
the man who owes us even we he die cause
the Bible say you gotta look after the widow.
But when he die it will be cause Missy and me
locked eyes many days and hated him like one
wronged woman made out of two, him standing
up there on the porch studyin everything—
his eyes lit up like he the Lord of all creation.
hush now, night wind on my skin, hush now
bird lost in trees, hush now, hungry moon
Copyright Credit: Afaa Michael Weaver, "Night Song for Missy" from A Hard Summation. Copyright © 2014 by Afaa Michael Weaver. Reprinted by permission of Central Square Press.
Source: A Hard Summation (Central Square Press, 2014)