Virginia

Stuck on cornbread and salted beans
Not sure why white people live like whites
Every time, not dipping into a jar
Not eating a hot sausage in wax paper
Not finishing off the edge of the world with a mystery airhead
You live like Virginia
Because it's the only way you know
Hidden in the successes of common brutality
But having fallen off
Really fallen off
The horse's map of delineation
And resting there
With no comfort in trying
All becoming and stretching
All loose ground, mismatched veins
In these folds
On this set table
Your comfort gives rise
Sick feelings in tummies
Gritty, jealous grains
Rubbing on sockets
And filling the tanks
When there is a war for freedom
No one survives
Your custard color t-shirt
Fleecy hair and handmade belt
Fall into greasy gears
But now all light
Glowing in noon day sun
Vibrant and redemptive
Lost on a lazy road
Dust picked up by a few loose pebbles
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9.13.10