Summer in the slowness

Skinny rat back then
he heard the rumor was
that dog-run past the sto
y’all seen it leanin south?

Worth a muggy explore
screen door punched
through, slant wise porch
run down inches from the sand
horseflies chowing in the wavy
air across tobacco flats.

At ten or twelve no telling what
maybe treasures come upon
nekked pitcher magazines
done punched by rain but still
Playboy, buckshot shells
for popping, liquor for the choking
maybe catch up to the redhead
invite her in and come
to need the Father’s wave
come Saturday’s confession
were worthy expectations.

Wonder lay in empty rooms
no words writ down explaining
newsprint papered walls, no clue
how they came to be
vacant like escaping heat
what celebration floorboards
carried, groans and grunts
what guilt free pleasure passed
the freeboard set that low?

Y’all be sure to certain which
some theys cardboard now
where a window usta, they may
be lived in still by folk
white eyed wide, fixed
upon a scrawny pale skin kid
who’d sooner practice knives
NIGGERS! and he’d flinch.
Summers after, each
day a different lifetime
confusing quadrants wandering
spying likely candidates, furtive
studying slope and line he would
consult the storyboard.

Choked with any number vines
dirt tracks leading on
blackberry through to bracken
and if a slough
involved the scene still better
sliding toward the water.

Now with better grasp
when entertained by bottle slide
and slaps of stinging liquor when
they land upon the nut of things
leaning in with white eyes
on the chorus ‘bout the ride
he sings along.

By any kind of measure whether envied
being in laconic green encrusted
patches those practitioners
of lowland tenant farming
yoked with necklace scars
hard like rope tattoos
those poor of God were most
fled from by example
lest the curse land square
smelling even that far back
instinctually the stench
of times and sin so southern.