Dead Blood
Seen your boy the other day walkin’
with a white girl as usual.
If I had known when I met him
he’d just end up wanderin' off
down the railroad tracks—
They whole family look the same.
They all got square heads, squat builds,
and funny colored eyes that fade now
and then to the blonde of new wheat.
You remember
the one time we saw his mama
caterwaulin’ on her front porch?
Crazy heifer.
She stay whorin’.
Told me if I didn’t watch
my man she was going to bone
his brains out and take him from me.
I told her, Bitch, if you can pay
his bills too, you can have him.
God,
what a waste.
Even blood can go to weeds.
Like that rash of kudzu in my backyard.
Pretty as a paycheck ’til it winds
around and through what you thought
was solid as a sycamore and then
one day you wake up smothered.
Don’t you
think that boy and his kin should just—
I don’t mean no harm,
but it’s not like the world would even miss
them if they kindly did us all
the favor of dying out.
