I was born a drop of water—
or something as close, a son of nature—
I sketched my future,
and saw myself a Choctaw.
First, I danced across buckeyes—
I came to and found myself raking in sawbucks.
I came across guilt, and then I saw—
my rear keeled sore on a sawhorse.
My eye, now grown, holds hallowed grace—
yet when that grace drops root in the tongue,
we call out “milady”, and lisp some manners,
laugh in our frippery—or equally,
speak as chastened monks—forbidding, lone,
surveying a tract of through-sodden land,
new acres of waste.
-2005
