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The History |
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history of Southern babies between pages of rotten teeth runny noses chest croup cough among the rags of turpentine and lumps of kerosene sugar I waited to hear of a single sweet moment perhaps in the back yard after dinner This one learned young to lick the spoon clean as he tried to swallow the moon to feed his breath and clear the cave of demons He might have grown up sniffing paint thinner to slide him toward the horizon lift him above the friction with a fat heavy head A delicious whiff and the pain goes away no bones no muscles no aches But the chimp on his shoulder came with a job mopping up glue in new plastic houses He’s a grown man now with a knife on his thigh strawberry skin blue poison blood Baptist, totem and good people’s heart I wanna stop I wanna work it hurts it hurts He sits and bawls – begs a nicotine moment A whiskey reprieve from mobile homes formaldehyde, rags in solvent With red belly burns of the second degree he stinks like sour and salt Under full spectrum lights gonna give him the third degree Enduring with a Demerol wish he tells about living under a rock driving to Florida where the sunshine hurts where his babies were lost to the heroine’s habit of needles and beer He’s been to the healer he’s been to the priest he’s petitioned every beach to tide away the taste of turpentine receding It’s nine years later and I’m all alone with him He’s all alone with pain and cravings with new babies and the mother epileptic In the comfort of a wood stove hut they watch daddy sniff the rag and pray the bible at night
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