Singing South

We were hidden in the servants' quarters

below grand rooms sold empty-

echo of drunken voices;

men with eyes like bullets of cocaine

staggering smashed glass feet

 of manic lust,

the violence ending crushed,

dialated stupor of my mother's

smuggled stash,

her bed floating in flames

before the marble fireplace.

 Slick whisper of dark cars

sat black in night-

windows watching through tinted eyes,

a fearful frenzy made the house go quiet

and one by one the squatters fled.

Abandoned,

 lease left behind, unpaid-

rooms strewn with incriminating

evidence,

we scavenged what could be sold

carefully,like playing pick-up-sticks,

my sister and I,

bagged syringes and razor blades.

We slept below,

old house of thirty rooms-

narrow damp of cellar beds

awoken to our mother's frenzied voice.

Slipping sidedoors cold in darkness

I carried my cat one armed,

cramming our escape

into an old red beetle.

Through slits of rusted floorboard

I watched a thousand miles

race under and behind-

my mother smoked,

singing blues about no woman

belonging nowhere,

miles of highway cracking through

like light between my feet.