Tina Boyer Brown

On the way home, Klansmen handed out pamphlets on the corner. At the convenience store, taxidermied alligator heads framed red red lips, black black skin, white wild white wide eyes, and teeth grinning (gritting). Mammy, Sambo, savages and jockeys shaped cookie jars, figurines, gravy boats, piggy banks, and salt and pepper shakers. I hold evidence in the shape of entrails, two scales stuck to the side of the sink. Bodies decapitated and soaked in milk and butter. Breaded in crumbs. Tender, the results of freeing the little ones. Mount that big one there. I have lived with the reduction of noise and the number of warnings. I have lived under July’s blankets and February’s ill-fitting sleeves. I have lived with the proof of the Susquehanna’s existence, in the shadow of the shadow of the outline of a bubble’s refracted edge.