Worked on the next fragment:
Flush skin on concrete,
arms press bud of magnolia deep through your chest—
I suppose you deserve it
this 6’ 4”, 300 lb body
dislocated rib splicing the fan of tendon and muscle
we are in awe when the darkest side of his arms makes a bruise the shape of Sugarloaf
against your throat—
thirty minutes after you approach him,
compare the bone white sclera to the night sky complexion
of this man from Eureka Springs, who—at twenty—had mapped the woods’
claustrophobic topography
nests of six species of lark
loved a white woman and the seeding stars bloomed below her waist
—you, boy, cried hard into my grandmother’s heart
until she couldn’t pull the soft crown of your head above pooling water
boy, ignorant boy, who shot the .22 target pistol, small hands held
wood and steel wrong; so, you, little white boy stung by the nettle
spend an entire summer with an old black man, remembering
forty years later,
pressed into parking lot pavement
his arms over yours forefinger and thumb cast firm over your grip the chicory
scent of his breath as it sung a hymn
just loud enough for you to hear over the concussive blast
