A Poem For Sunday

“Report to the Mother” by Etheridge Knight:

Well, things / be / pretty bad now, Mother—

Got very little to eat.

The kids got no shoes for their tiny feet.

Been fighting with my woman, and one / other

Woe:—Ain’t got a cent to pay the rent.

Been oiling / up / my pistol, too—

Tho I / be / down with the flu,

So what / are / You going to do . . . ?

O Mother don’t sing me

To the Father to fix / it—

He will blow-it. He fails

and kills

His sons—and / you / know it.

(From The Essential Etheridge Knight © 1986 by Etheridge Knight. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press. Photo by Phil Warren)