HICKORY (CIRCA 1890-1940)
Reginald Flood hands
No easy damn way to let it go boy jug been calling fifty years, since fourteen: these hands, their dirt, dollar a day destroys want for anything more than whiskey, and clean cool water from same well my daddy dug for them while he raised us up for better. These fields harden a man to what he can‘t lug, blessings don‘t matter: you a mule fettered to a rented plow, watching sweat salt rain that don‘t quench nothing, don‘t redeem nothing not thirst inside, not hands shaking with shame, until knife, chisel, file, pain starts cutting truth from hickory to face jug, field boss searching each sliver for what has been lost.
wood At first, gramps would just let me finish up his cuttings, not touch the chisel or blade. After carving piece out, old man would cup a long pour of the good: whiskey best made for celebrating something, then hand me what he knifed with the dull file and a stone, to make tongue touch good seasoned hickory. That old man took scrap, released flesh and bone into more than pipes, plates; because he heard folks changing the old stories into talk had no breaking pens, no shackle sores, no dirge the women folks back there chanted on walk to mourn before cotton, before whiskey forced him to let a boy finish memory.
FLOOD ∫ 54