by Michael S. Harper
Disarticulated
arm torn out,
large veins cross
her shoulder intact,
her tourniquet
her blood in all-white big bands:
Can't you see
what love and heartache's done to me
I'm not the same as I used to be
this is my last affair
Mail truck or parked car
in the fast lane,
afloat at forty-three
on a Mississippi road,
Two-hundred-pound muscle on her ham bone,
'nother nigger dead 'fore noon:
Can't you see
what love and heartache's done to me
I'm not the same as I used to be
this is my last affair
Fifty-dollar record
cut the vein in her neck,
fool about her money
toll her black train wreck,
white press missed her fun'ral
in the same stacked deck:
Can't you see
what love and heartache's done to me
I'm not the same as I used to be
this is my last affair
Loved a little blackbird
heard she could sing,
Martha in her vineyard
pestle in her spring,
Bessie had a bad mouth
made my chimes ring:
Can't you see
what love and heartache's done to me
I'm not the same as I used to be
this is my last affair
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