By Rachel Eliza Griffiths

The woman in blue overalls
rubbed her fingers over
my open mouth. A woman
whose eyes gone away
to a different time of blues.
Time before water. Time
before bite, dog & bullet.
She rubbed my neck,
murmuring, Us can’t fly
Us can’t fly, mah Teacake,
mah sweetbread boy. In my mouth
I tasted Lake Okechobee’s apology,
forty miles wide & sixty miles long.
The jook of water washed
over my dusky jubilee.
This dead boy’s old music box
lost somewhere in those waters.
I felt it all in her hands rubbing me
the night before she washed him
down for the last time, singing in his
ear. His ghost is here too, giving
me a try & hum. Both of them
weeping at this split of spirit.
Her hands gripped his stone-cold hands
around my throat, making angels
pluck their cat-gut lyres. Her hands
beckoned the brass ghosts of
Bahaman drummers to leap,
fly, walk along a field of low clouds
with dusty feet. O morning woman,
I want to say to her
when they get ready to pull the lid
over me & this boy. O woman,
I got to say, love ain’t even quiet in here.
Not long as I’m in this boy’s hands,
opening a strawberry mouth
over his half-smiling stitched lips.
Woman, me & this white silk
canopy, going to bear your man
‘til he wake up again. When he wake up
again, singing to you. Us can fly,
heah Janie, Us can fly for certain.
Gal, just wait for us
to wake up in your arms.