Payments

(at McLeod Plantation)

yonder, my new gin a-whir

     that there jeweled bottle-tree

this here haint paint dispelling haunts

     there magic resurrection ferns part brown

even under a live oak parasol

     by their prosperous houses, prizeworthy

inglorious hogs penned, and still slaughter

     fielding so many 6th birthdays and hands

piles of tangly grey hair for packing wounds and

     pesky chiggers

tiny spiny seeds in

      speckled, puckering, pointy, peridot pods

promising, round, smooth, and still unravish’d

     pale papery blossoms to take, to redden

unbloodied white bales of bolls, in burlap

     all my hard, hard work, worsted in

those billowing bedsheets of a thousand threads

     now my eyes niggardly

          affix to the patient click of a new

                progressive pocket-watch