East Baltimore, Fried Chicken

Abstract

East Baltimore, Fried Chicken Afaa Michael Weaver (bio) for Freddie Gray The hot sauce broke the oathI made against eating while driving,my promise to not be ethnic,to not betray the honor of ancestorswho swam in swamps, bloodhoundsgiving chase to the smell of meat. At the stoplight I lost all shameon the way to work, ripped openthe aluminum foil, unleashed the roarof the smell of mama's fried chicken,the golden brown in red hot sauce,a blues choir, sirens waving in rivers. Nothing, no thing could claim to beas golden as my mother's fried chicken,the gold of it some divine electric,some sharp measure of time travelingacross nerves to blood, love, acheto keep me whole, to keep me, not lose me inside the cages of wagonsof patrollers, paddy wagons shaking,breaking black folk until the electricshimmering that is life, body of fleshsoul of victories won and unwonbecome eulogies of bones on drums. [End Page 57] Afaa Michael Weaver Afaa Michael Weaver is the author of more than a dozen poetry collections, including Timber and Prayer: The Indian Pond Poems, My Father's Geography, The Plum Flower Dance: Poems 1985 to 2005, The Government of Nature, and City of Eternal Spring. He is Alumnae Professor of English at Simmons College in Boston. Weaver is the recipient of an nea fellowship, a Pew fellowship, and a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowship. He has been awarded the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, a Pushcart Prize, and a Fulbright scholar appointment, among other honors. Copyright © 2016 University of Nebraska Press