Brother Clark Feedmire

She strokes my busted knuckles with the tip of her wet tongue
How is it that you hit so hard, she asks
I throw my hand with horror in my heart, I say
Born of slippery shadowy things in the dark corners of my childhood
Those distant years when I slept on the soft stomach of a black prostitute
Her pink fingernails in my hair
The stench of stale milk at her breasts
Train platforms at the edge of town at 3am
Gunshots in the madness
Brother Clark Feedmire breathing heavy into his harmonica on the radio
My daddy met a preacher in the Can
A panther who had strangled his own wife and kids
A God-fearing man
A soulless husk
I killed him, he told me
Holding the broken fingers of his swollen fist against the plastic divider
Wrapped in prison gauze
Days before they killed him too
The county
And the state

She settles down on top of me
Her eyes blue
Kissing me with blood on her white teeth
The taste of cigarettes on her lips
Kings of glory and the sweat of slaves
Trappers wrapped in furs and men who dig for oil
Preachers and prisoners
Our clothes on the wooden deck outside
Her hollow chest
Dogs barking ceaselessly in the night
We chase one another in some other man’s bed

What kinds of things do you dream about, she asks
I smile because I have not dreamed in a long time
Madmen cannot be trusted to keep secrets such as those

06.2013

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