skittles [Today's News Poem by @HikiMadwoman /Preservative Woman, April 13, 2012]

skittles [Today's News Poem by @HikiMadwoman /Preservative Woman, April 13, 2012]
HikiMadwoman/Preservative Woman http://preservativewoman.posterous.com

barefoot florida
when i was five hot sand
mixed with tar black dirt
and

lacquered stickers waited
just under the surface
to slip dark spines deep
into my pink soles

my mammaw on that side believed
in fake lashes and make-up mastic
and a rainbow jesus
sealed in yellowed plastic

i played sky and scratched vinyl
on brown shag carpet
our shades pulled down
to keep the kneegrass out

mammaw had stories about kneegrass
with figured armor and wings wide
their eyes rolling
with heavy lips slavering and obscene

the kneegrass were bold
came close to the back door
hiding in sharp sun
their weapons flashing signals

between detergent commercials
whiter than white
she told me of their buffalo-haired hides
and muscled thighs

how they would steal cars
and drive
rubber pulling up tar and crushed coral
under paved florida skies

she talked of killing
them and all they had wrought
she even had a chrome gun
a boyfriend had bought

one concrete morning
whitewashed bright
i pressed against the
screen door sulfur smell

at ten o'clock am
sunlight was already acid
mammaw at the sink
told me to look

"see them kneegrass
walking weeds with trash
my how they must smell
gotta be someone i can tell"

i looked for shoulder'd wings beating
armor and buffalo hide
black skin and rolling eyes
a beast of great size

but she pointed at two girls
my age
holding a pink doll by the legs
one blue eye flapping open

they were slow as gray sand
thin bodies out of sweat
i wanted to give them water
to bring them into shade

but i could only stare
at mammaw
red hands and polyester dress
eating the window glass

and thanks to you i know
how to make monsters
we have only to refuse
to see them as they are

from on the other side
of our flyspeckled past

:separate
:other
:unhuman

"Racist past haunts Florida town where Trayvon died" Orlando Sentinel: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-rt-us-usa-florida-sanfordbre837069-20120408,0,557366.story

Barely Edited HikiMadwoman Bio As Per Twitter: Reclusive Madwoman. Careful. She bites.

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