ante bellum

Flotilla of shimmers in heavy noon haze

Big Daddy shakes with mirth to see a raccoon flayed,
rocking there in a white linen suit, stains underarm
across his broad fat back. Calling out, in cusses, broad
encouragements to the toothless skinner's flensing steel.
Mint julep in his left hand, black barbed scourge to the right -
toothed, clogged with scrags and tassels of skin and scalp.

The sun shifts

The pool grows of gore and guts beneath the coon.
Dark flies swarm like the fuzzed ghost of a man.
Beyond banjo and jew’s-harp twang something tuneless
and vines and spanish moss drip with sweat of day.
Big Daddy is lord of all here: its father, yours, allfather,
malefactor and benefactor both. Owner of the sweat and guts.

The sun goes down

Yowl of yardhound and mournful roostercrow. The goldlight.
Glints of it in the verandah view through the cracked oak
and epiphyte garlands. Coon’s skinned now, the flenser put away,
and nobody can remember what the skin was wanted for.
Big Daddy on his eighth julep drowses, oozes thick gin drops.
He's dreamt the perfect domain, dreamt himself the suzerain.

Originally published in Orpheus