Dark Halls Poem by Sona Wilae

stubby digits twirl Meridian heat
as not the Mama coos baby's soiled cries.

churn butter, snap-beans, with cornmeal hoecakes
for supper gal, we hungry as the ox
- -plowing
our fields...green owned hills of black legacy.

milk them cows child, pluck chickens, collard greens
brewing over smoked meat seasoned with love,
God's whistling winds swirl with purpose tonight
Papa's knees done swollen big as onions.

don't cry sister, shadows lurk moans and dark
halls of black girls-enslaved by incestuous
uncles waiting behind barn doors, lurking
in sweaty disgust- -like white sheet demons.

em, eye, crooked-eye-crooked eye,
eye, crooked-eye-crooked-eye
eye, hump-back-hump-back, eye.

ironed starched-shirts miss lady, nah sir please
please stop I's a kept woman, please don't bite
my pain...my baby will never serve you
- -see.

grow dreams like tall pines, sing songs of Moses
from Red sea to shiny sea of my black
volumes written in mixed warm southern blood
resting silently in my daughter's urn.