Mason Freeman Cut Jenkins Down

Frederick-Douglass Knowles II

He hung from an old hickory tree along the Mississippi
A uppity Nigguh seared in a Red Summer flame
His Oh Lawd! forsaken for a swig of moonshine
A sun god wrung for eyeballin’ the sun

A uppity Nigguh seared in a Red Summer flame
His innard ate earth under a disemboweled sky
A sun god wrung for eyeballin’ the sun
Charred loins stick-poked by children cloaked in Christianity

His innard ate earth under a disemboweled sky
Mothers cast quilts riverside to keep close eye
Charred loins stick-poked by children cloaked in Christianity
Minions mimicking their ghost-hooded inheritance

Mothers cast quilts riverside to keep close eye
A crow psalmed the blues to a metronome of cracked bone
Minions mimicking their ghost-hooded inheritance
While I gripped my shiv in the shallows of a stream

A crow psalmed the blues to a metronome of cracked bone
He hung from an old hickory tree along the Mississippi
While I gripped my shiv in the shallows of a stream
His Oh Lawd! forsaken for a swig of moonshine

Issue 10, 2018, pg. 19