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BRUTAL IMAGINATION | |||||
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Chapter One
The speaker is the young black man
Susan Smith claimed
kidnapped her children.
HOW I GOT BORN
Though it's common belief
That Susan Smith willed me alive
At the moment
Her babies sank into the lake
When called, I come.
My job is to get things done.
I am piecemeal.
I make my living by taking things.
So now a mother needs me clothed
In hand-me-downs
And a knit cap.
Whatever.
We arrive, bereaved
On a stranger's step.
Baby , they weep,
Poor child .
MY HEART
Susan Smith has invented me because
Nobody else in town will do what
She needs me to do.
I mean: jump in an idling car
And drive off with two sad and
Frightened kids in the back.
Like a bad lover, she has given me a poisoned heart.
It pounds both our ribs, black, angry, nothing but business.
Since her fear is my blood
And her need part mythical,
Everything she says about me is true.
WHO AM I?
Who are you, mister?
One of the boys asks
From the eternal backseat
And here is the one good thing:
If I am alive, then so, briefly, are they,
Two boys returned, three and one,
Quiet and scared, bunched together
Breathing like small beasts.
They can't place me, yet there's
Something familiar.
Though my skin and sex are different, maybe
It's the way I drive
Or occasionally glance back
With concern,
Maybe it's the mixed blessing
Someone, perhaps circumstance,
Has given us,
The secret thrill of hiding,
Childish, in plain sight,
Seen, but not seen,
As if suddenly given the power
To move through walls,
To know every secret without permission.
We roll sleepless through the dark streets, but inside
The cab is lit with brutal imagination.
SIGHTINGS
A few nights ago
A man swears he saw me pump gas
With the children
At a convenience store
Like a punchline you get the next day,
Or a kiss in a dream that returns while
You're in the middle of doing
Something else.
I left money in his hand.
Mr. ________ who lives in ________
South Carolina,
Of average height
And a certain weight
Who may or may not
Believe in any of the
Basic recognized religions,
Saw me move like an angel
In my dusky skin
And knit hat.
Perhaps I looked him in the eye.
Copyright © 2001 Cornelius Eady. All rights reserved.