Yellow Dog Café

In a cerulean ruckus
Of quilts, we played house 
Off the big room where
They laughed & slowdragged 
Weekends. The eagle flies
On Friday. The jukebox pulsed
A rainbow through the papery walls. 
We were paid a dollar to guard 
Each other. I was eight
& S. C. Mae fourteen,
As we experimented with
The devil. Mill workers
Changed money in the briny 
Glow of bootleg, overpowered 
By the smell of collards, catfish
& candied yams. Granddaddy Gabriel 
Worked the cash register
Beside his second wife, Rosie 
Belle. I heard my mother
& father laugh like swimmers 
Underwater. A raw odor
Of lilies & sweat filled the room; 
My cousin’s hands moved over me 
Smooth & tough as a blues guitar. 
Somebody swore they saw 
A silhouette with a gasoline can 
The night S. C. Mae ran away 
With a woman’s husband. 
For weeks they sifted ashes 
But the gutted studs & braces 
Only leaned against the wind, 
Weak as a boy & girl entwined 
On the floor. That June
Granddaddy drove a busload 
Up north: the growers paid him
A dollar a day for each pair of hands. 
He wanted to rebuild those nights, 
Their circle of blurred cards.
The bus grunted between orchards, 
& by late August I had enough 
Fire-blackened nickels & dimes
To fill a sock, but only a few pickers 
Came back after a season of wine-stained 
Greenbacks sewn inside coats
& taped to the soles of their feet.