Tunica, Mississippi 1983

I was waiting for the clock,
stuck at that desk and sticky
like the rest of the kids,
all daydreaming of getting
home to pick the fields
with their daddies. I didn't have
a daddy. No old farmer in my house.
No labor lines to look up
to on his hands or worn
overalls that would be mine.
I had pruned fingers from washing
bedsheets in the backyard
and my mama's frilly apron.

The crows were squalling,
picking at each other for
kicks or maybe food, their
eyes hungry in the dry wind.
And every time, the teacher would
just wait for them to shut up,
watching them with scowls,
before going on about the Delta
and the tributaries and what not.
I remember looking out the window,
the highway wavering in the noon-
time heat, and I try to tone out
Miss Levine's old voice, croaking
about "the juice of puzzlement"
or something, and I let myself
out the window, wandering down
the rocks to the road, past the road
and through the corn crop to
your house--little tin and aluminum
shack-outpost on the skirting
edge of town. I thought about
the summer, sweat-filled days like
that day where we'd sweat, even
with our clothes off; the way
you told me not to tell anybody,
not even mama, even as I balanced
my fingers on your lips, waiting
to let them mouse their way in.