the track
(for my grandmother Nezeree Cox Willingham)


a few years after i had learned
to glean the shadow of fire
from print
and carry whole worlds with me
that could only mean nothing
without our flesh to hold them up

my grandmother, the adventurer
immigrant from atlanta to detroit
diviner of upsouth factory jobs
grabbed me my brother
and my newly adopted birthplaces
and took us all to the race track

like my new world of decoded hieroglyphs
horse racing seemed simple at a glance
but oh the rolling quake of hooves
the dirt flying and sanctifying
the electric silk of the jockey uniforms
making them like some
overgrown elves astride
four legged juggernauts

and all of it balanced
on the point
of a wager
a guess
on who would go the length
before the rest
a certain distance
agreed to before hand
and each rider
assigned a beast

deeper still
and unknown to me
was what whispers and hand shakes
had determined
before the race was a race
the big money fixes
last night’s threats
who had been rushed to the starting gate
despite injury
all these things were
invisible to the hapless gamblers
and deaf to the track side shouts
and screams for overdue rent money
or painfully scheduled car payments

come on blue moon
you can do it
month of sundays
act right baby
don’t do me like that

but she was done
like that most days
that’s the way it goes
she would say

for years i would ponder
what
it
was and where
it
was going
or could have gone
and how many words
it took
to build a place
where people flocked
to guess about the end
of a race in a circle

it
would be years
before I knew
what it meant to get it
from the horse’s mouth
 

mp3



(here)
where i fell

        1
sex
dream
earth

red
black
time

the zombie’s mirror
is emptied with failed eyes
its own

        2
the world knows
and calls us
it says
open a picture of the solar system
spread stars on a blanket
find a place for one finger to rest
and you are there

but this is a hard lesson
a difficult center
it comes through the rocks
lubricates the cement
with blood and rain
and washes with the sun
it is the harbor between

what we read
inside the eyelid and
what sleep charges us with
we cannot leave

        3
sand
card
face

wind
rope
hand

the body is a bag
a carrier
the place
where i take my unknowing
the tunnel mouth
closed to bear the dark
the lava of the dreamed

every word i write
or speak draws the path
how my blood reaches the water
how it feels to drown
to burn
to find gold coins
worthless in sleep
lover’s skin beneath
a breeze of cloth
i’ve heard my name
so many times
that it is buried
in the air
       
4
it is not magic that keeps the vampire
from seeing itself in the mirror
it is blinded by its own appetite

night
driver
wall

cliff
wing
fire

the time in sex
the blood in prey
the rot of the dead
that brings life to the soil
how is all this not seeing
and what we know

every language is a skin
spread edge to edge
a wing
balled into the earth’s fist
a fire
swallowed like a zygote
and things rise
what we know
comes up
we confess tortured
ecstatic
split with boredom

the world calls us
spreads us out

one afternoon
one dawn
one night
when the stars x-ray the clouds
you may think there is nothing
inside your eyelid
that the rocks are dead
that there is only one face
in your mirror

one time
that is now
in your mouth
in your hand
in your skull
you may have something


mp3
 

Copyright © kim d. hunter 2007