1.
We were cutting corn from cobs,
separating pied kernels
into red piles, yellow, black.
We weren’t told to do this.
We took it upon ourselves
to make distinctions,
showing off our mother wit:
red into bowls,
yellow into jars with dated labels,
black into the scuttle
by the stove.
2.
Lutie Watson swallowed a snake
when she drank at the creek
that lynchers sank Jo-jo’s stone-filled
body last year;
that snake must have been
his soul transformed
because now she’s pregnant again,
way past the age of possibility.
3.
Went to a gypsy.
Gypsy had never seen a lifeline so long.
Stretches from my thumb to my shoulder.
4.
He may be a buck-toothed
ugly dude
but he ain’t a sawed-off runt.
Shoulders so broad
looks like his head
sits on a boxcar.
I go walking with him
through them I-talian sections,
them Polish and what-have-you sections,
people damn near bow.
His T-shirt (special made) says:
Home-grown in Darkest Africa.
5.
What’s a nice colored girl like you
doing in New England?
Thinking about changing my reputation.
Five Miracles; from Small Congregations: New and Selected Poems by Thylias Moss.1983, 1990, 1991, 1993 by Thylias Moss. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Source: Small Congregations: New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 1993)
We were cutting corn from cobs,
separating pied kernels
into red piles, yellow, black.
We weren’t told to do this.
We took it upon ourselves
to make distinctions,
showing off our mother wit:
red into bowls,
yellow into jars with dated labels,
black into the scuttle
by the stove.
2.
Lutie Watson swallowed a snake
when she drank at the creek
that lynchers sank Jo-jo’s stone-filled
body last year;
that snake must have been
his soul transformed
because now she’s pregnant again,
way past the age of possibility.
3.
Went to a gypsy.
Gypsy had never seen a lifeline so long.
Stretches from my thumb to my shoulder.
4.
He may be a buck-toothed
ugly dude
but he ain’t a sawed-off runt.
Shoulders so broad
looks like his head
sits on a boxcar.
I go walking with him
through them I-talian sections,
them Polish and what-have-you sections,
people damn near bow.
His T-shirt (special made) says:
Home-grown in Darkest Africa.
5.
What’s a nice colored girl like you
doing in New England?
Thinking about changing my reputation.
Five Miracles; from Small Congregations: New and Selected Poems by Thylias Moss.1983, 1990, 1991, 1993 by Thylias Moss. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Source: Small Congregations: New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 1993)