for Kwame Dawes
Your scuttled pays floats -- fiery -- in the ether;Blazing, it vomits smudge-smoke. Your mind charsBlack because you yaw .-- moth-like -.- too near flames.You douse your dream-scorched brain with slave-sweat rum --The only gold you can own, corrodingYour liver. Your anthem plays to gunfire. When you think about it (when you can breathe) .--After all the lies that frame nostalgia,All the dead faces that occupy photographs,All the slain lovers pitched into ditches,Your eyes itch and ache with water, then dry .--Curling like dead leaves, starving for gold fire.
