On Listening to My Father Sing, and: Where the Next Poem Is

Abstract

On Listening to My Father Sing, and: Where the Next Poem Is Morgan Blalock (bio) ON LISTENING TO MY FATHER SING What that song is made of:ethanol, red dirt, throbbingfingers, the biggest porch you ever seen— whose father doesn't knoweach word to every kind ofblues there ever was? Our house got death letter blues, got brokedown engine blues, got downhearted,got travelers' blues: lined up, shot at with the Colt that soredmy shoulder. Son House,Blind Willie, Mississippi John wail around woodstack, Miss Dolly humsJolene's name left of propanetanks, Robert Johnson behind the brick pile. Twenty-some years, must'vebeen a hundred times Fathertold me all I need is a black cat bone [End Page 66] and some mojo; must've beencountless days of backbreakingwork he ran through Muddy's dirty bass. Wiki says a black cat bonepromises good luck, rebirth,success in love, wards off an evil eye. Guess my father lived adifferent life than I made up.To obtain a black cat bone: first catch the cat, boil it alive—midnightonly—and better be sure youpicked it right. Father says you'd hold the bones up front of a mirror, choose darkestreflection. See, he hasn't alwaysbeen here, making sure I know everybody's got to fall at their crossroadin order to pray and get back up, to seek, take aim. [End Page 67] WHERE THE NEXT POEM IS On the barest pantry shelf, where preserves crowdbefore summer jams heavy on us. At the core of the question Mother asks each July:Little girl, when did it get so bad? Inside three years in which I watched your bodymean things outside of speech. Second floor of the once-house where the sweetestblackest wine is stored in jugs near bathtub below half roof, filled up half-clearwith rainwater and ash, with light. Near the (now collapsed) kilns where WilliamBurrell lost both legs in a rockslide and bled fourteen minutes on the road to C&OHospital in Clifton Forge, 1941. At the moment Rodney Jones wrote and this iswhen it's not language; how I remember you standing apart from me acrossthe white yard grown impossible. [End Page 68] Morgan Blalock Morgan Blalock graduated from Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, but now lives in South Park, Colorado. You can find her work in CutBank, The Adroit Journal, Collision, and Prairie Margins. Copyright © 2017 Berea College