I have always lived
in a hovel on the edge of
historic colored town. Now I live in
a hovel between two white-trash trailer parks.
Formerly, I lived in rental properties. Now, I own
my own lot and the house on it. If the city violates me,
I have to fix it up. I don't want to be a bad neighbor.
Brenda keeps chickens. She grows plants--bushes--that attract
butterflies and songbirds. But also snakes and varmints.
Our yard looks like it isn't properly tended.
We're not middle class.
We're poor.
It don't make us
a bad person.
I fix cheap, nutritious meals, from scratch.
I use all natural ingredients. Home-grown, in many cases.
We have a hay-bale garden. Our chickens are free-range.
That means we let them out in the mornings, lock them up at night,
to protect them from raccoons and possums. Housecats, they can handle.
My chicken whip your cat's ass or I'm not Irish Catholic.
The American schoolyard lives! In the post-Bush-Enron
administration recession.
What did I think
would happen?
We weren't busted, we were just
reverted to our permanent rank: yardbird.
A hick is fatalistic. Here I am again, mixing
misery and gin. Merle Haggard. Greatest Hits.
Gin. J-I-N.
Oysters Brown. That's Oysters Rockefeller
with star anise instead of penrod, as Wayne called it.