For my father, Otis Douglas Smith,
and the grandparents I never knew
Maybe his father grunted, brusque and focused as he
brawled with the steering, maybe there was enough time
for a flashed invective, some hot-patched dalliance with God.
Then the Plymouth, sounding like a cheated-on woman,
screamed into hurtled revolt and cracked against a tree.
Bone rammed through shoulder, functions imploded,
compounded pulse spat slow thread into the road.
His small stuttering mother’s body braided up sloppy
with foliage and windshield, his daddy became
the noon’s smeared smile. For hours, they simply rained.
It is Arkansas, so the sky was a cerulean stretch, the sun
a patient wound. The boxy sedan smoldered and spat
along the blistered curve while hounds and the skittering
sniffed the lumping red river and blood birds sliced lazy over
the wreck, patiently waiting for the feast to cool. The sheriff
sidled up, finally, rolled a toothpick across his bottom teeth,
weighed his options. It was ’round lunchtime, the meatloaf
on special, that slinky waitress on call. He climbed
back into his cruiser and drove off, his mind clear. Awfully nice
of those poor nigras to help out. Damned if they didn’t
just drip right into the dirt. Pretty much buried themselves.