Oh blood mud, ground made rust with the iron of us

Oh foggy symmetric, Oh cataract sky

Oh kinky margins displaced by humidity, the tricky algorithim, animal and wound

Oh Sunday dresses, stained by Christ, his good marrow, the young grass

Oh baptize me, ruin me, oh cool cerulean clean

Oh praise river, oh sovereign dew

Oh made hole and then whole again 

 

Oh missing children from Bowen homes, chalk the circumference, a mother’s lonely ache

Oh Bluffs, Oh summer snow, a pandemic of raw mouths

Oh, ghosts living in between the holy and what lies between 

Oh son-gone sermons, oh mourning, oh praise

Oh custom tees, oh last rights, oh embalmed smile, oh memory 

Oh memory fading behind the knees at dusk

 

Oh stolen kisses in empty chapels, mouths upon themselves in the lap of God

Oh God, Oh yes, silk hands tethered in shag carpet frisk

Oh pleasure. ‘Bama boys not worth they mama's labor

Oh playing grown in children's church 

Oh fast-ass mischief, Creole curiosity, oh 

 

Oh tell the truth. Oh shame the devil. 

Oh sneaking communion before the lord arrives. 

Oh fellowship hall in your great grandmother's name

Oh Maggie, Maggie 

Oh patron saint, oh quick mouth. Made ancestor the best way &

Oh, at the worst time.  

 

Oh generation of eager worship, 

One after another fallin in love with a false god

Oh broken curses of the family name

Oh family name 

Oh lion oh Israel oh spaniard bastard, indigenous dark 

Oh gumbo. Oh massa scraps made harvest. 

Oh survival survival survival and only a few scars.

Oh pot deeper than a grandmother’s prayer 

Oh prayer. Oh black magic. Oh slurped marrow. Rooster feather. 

Oh Reading bones. Brick dust. Rosehip. Indigo. Cayenne. High John. 

Oh root. Oh root. Oh the work of conquerors. 

Oh, how deep does we bury ourselves, grow & not be slain

 

Oh laws of kindred blood. 

Oh lineage of shared palm. now there lives a city of us 

Oh dwelling. Oh home inside the land. Oh weesum oh weesum                 

Oh, we sumthin awful. 

 

Oh, thick heat and unpaved roads. Oh stroke of navel fervor.

Oh Porch stoop at dusk

Oh firecracker oh 

Oh whistlebullet. Oh ghost tomb. Hollow mouths, saunter in and out the gospel

Oh holy, Oh holy, Oh holy, Oh holy

 

Oh georgia me, fast girl in a too slow town. 

                            too heavy for the air. too free.