And there was logic to it. In a state
where lynchers were losing work,
boys were learning to do the jobs themselves:
drugs, drownings, diabetes, the dark bitters
of being in love but never being shown how.  
And the girls. If they weren’t leeching
from us, they were teaching us
how to starve out our wants. How we should know
no one had time to keep our eyes
open, keep our pried legs closed.
 
So they left us to every device that wasn’t
damned. The boys pushed mothers
into walls, became fathers to children
they wouldn’t see, lured children
with long country grasshoppers perched
like chartreuse daggers on the dashboard,
and bits of peanut candy. Still, the women
held them as preciously as loose water.
Still, they slipped from us, and there was nothing
left to feed our hot houses of flowers.
We were expendable, even when
there was nothing left to lose.
 
The first time, he kisses me chastely on the cheek;
the second time, with his fingers in me, he rasps,
“You’re a nasty bitch, aren’t you?” And I laugh.
I am, but not in the way he wants me
to think. Oh boy, I know the treason
of wondering if you deserve
what you’re about to get.
Oh, body, my safest spouse astride
these spouses, this is the price
you’ve always paid for joy
worth more than the kings
you never fought for, mouths
you were taught to feed before sating
your own. Even though those mouths
always eat first. Even though eating first
has never brought them back.

—Destiny O. Birdsong

< BACK | NEXT >

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A note from the artist: This artwork is part of “Who Cares?”, a traveling exhibition of painted portraits that honors caregivers and their gracious generosity. To bring the conversation to your community, contact PDubroof (at) gmail (dot) com.