Always in the Dirty South

   black men—, always with
protuberate, watchkeeping eyes.

  Saintly Sistas—, hair wrapped always
with tattered rags; always
                  roped in faded ties.

   Clotheslines always suspended 3-
         rows deep. Audible winds
flapping in the folds of it's greyish sheets.

Alabama and Mississippi’s long,  
   coiling roads, always cotton coated,
always waylaid
   with moss-bearded trees—,
   and always a nearby noose
         where men dusted and embrowned
never last, and with some hired gun
or militant militia, are bound to clash!

THE HELP, always a color undeniably black,
THE BUTLER, always a color
definitively of umber shade
THE BLACK POLITICIAN,
always a color mimicking ASHENED WHITE.

Shacks, always tilted right
without much reprieve.
Creek waters, always rising above
scraped knees.
Hovels, seldom slanted right  so
black mammas—beaded sweat rolling
down there backs—can pray catch ‘a
pardoning breeze!