photo credit: Bill Cottman

Down To Da Sky

“If he ask you what I was wearing

Tell him a rainbow round my shoulders”

Sometimes moon outshines sun

And a way toward freedom is lit

Jo Bobby knew only 

Day to day toil and grind

Perspirational reality from

Walking atop eggshells

Navigating broken glass

Brutal consequences

Of belonging to somebody

 Branded chattel

Punished as a prisoner

When he resisted

Isolated because he longed for freedom

Mutilated when he escaped and was caught

Scarred / battered 

He’d swung the captain’s hammer

Pounding nails

Knocking loose floorboards

Wall panels

Prying anything apart

That did the tighten up

By now he had access 

To a bevy of tools

Claw hammers

Sledgehammers

Chisels

Wire cutters

Pliers  

Crowbars and chains

None of them his

None could deconstruct his life

Or build a new one

“If he ask you what I carried

Tell him I got my pride”

One day da fix it man was called to the killing yard

Handed an already bloody sledgehammer

Generations of dried animal DNA

With fresh plasma from botched attempts

That day

Captain told him “she’s a mean ol’ sow now

You got to kill her”

He saw his life flash before his eyes

His life

Her life and theirs all flashing ubiquitously

He could never do this

If he thought about it

So he swung that hammer

With unconscious accuracy

Like John Henry

Like slaughter house Joe

Like a man who wanted to save his own life

“If he ask you was I runnin’

Tell him I was flyin’

Like them Africans at Igbo Landing” 

Flushed with anxiety

Lost in powerlessness

In the strobe lights of murder

Jo Bobby realized that in his

Entire life he and even veteran

Stockyard killers only

Got neck bones

Hog maws

Jowls

Streak of lean

Fat back

Ham hocks

Chitlins

Knuckles

Ears

Feet

Souse meat

Head Cheese and

Sausages for their labor

While the captain and those

In the big house dined on ham

Rump

Shoulder

Ribs

Pork chops

High hog meat

“If he ask you was I laughin’

Tell him I was cryin’

The sight of the sow collapsing

Under Jo’s direct hit

Made him violently ill

For the first time he’d used a tool

As weapon and that made him fear his future

He couldn’t rest

Couldn’t stay

An image of the plantation brand

He wore was prominent on that sow’s ham

“If he ask you was I singin’

Tell him I was moanin’

Tell him I was prayin’

It happened last time they brought him back

From following the light of the moon

He was whipped

Branded

Put in a hole

Fed cornbread and molasses 

The light the night too big

To fight so he gathered himself

Woke his woman and whispered

“If he ask you was he headed north

Tell him I was headed down to da sky”

His woman thought she was dreaming

She’d had this dream countless times

Some nights she’d wake up

And Jo Bobby would be sleep beside her

Other nights even the dent

Where he use to lay was gone

Fannie Ruth knew this nightmare

In moon and sun

Eyes open and shut

His haunting was her hell

She couldn’t tell real from

Surreal so she just said

“Jo Jo what you think um gon’ do”

Jo bobby pressed his finger to her lips and

Hissed like Miles Davis

“Take this hammer

Carrit to the captain

Tell him um gone

If he ask you why

Tell him cornbread and molasses”