NaPoWriMo – 4/2/18 – Day 2

(Reminiscent of a story I heard in New Orleans many years ago)

Weavers with knotted hands
told of a man as they worked
he lived before they were children
legendary

visiting brothels with pockets of gold
carved his name on women’s backs
breeding like the alpha lion then
abandoning

his son’s black mother before he was
born as white men did until one day
a young girl’s death caused her friend to
betray him

the weavers told of the old brewery brawl
speaking in a dialect only they understood
a man sliced him in the alley with a
filet knife

stripping his skin like fish scales discarding
them along the abandoned pier breaking
his bones into shards with an ax
Caimon! Caimon!

one weaver shouted the story of the
fragments that flowed in and out with the tide
refining remains that stuck to the pilings like
barnacles

it takes years for a whole man to disappear
but pieces of soulless men are consumed quickly
their debris collected curated for historical fabric
bits of Bone

splinters of teeth and the small edge of a
tattooed flag and fingernails like translucent shells
detached and deconstructed now unidentifiable secrets
released by the Sea

legends become archeological finds displayed on museum walls
mixed media of justice and natural law
from a time when the truth was only told in stories but never
written

 

Green Not Hazel
©jacqualine-marie 2018