My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 86

THE HANGED MAN

85

BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

when the hanged man shits
we know death has taken over
the drool on his lips harden
where the tongue gargoyles out and
his eyes squeeze out a bit of last light
more often than not his genitals stiffen
then hang tumescent as if they
like him have lost directions
the rancid breath rales clicking
like vultures feeding or something
hissing toward candle flame
only the dead can see while
legs dance joyously to a melody
only the hanged man hears
feet pointed as if to pirouette
while hooded figures job done
disappear in the copse of trees and black
faces look up into the even blacker
night full of screams fading into the wind
like the hooting of owls or bull frogs
croaking in muddy shallows
throats expanding contracting
the story passed on and consumed
in a single photo in a family album
an uncle a cousin or brother
Ethel’s boy or Roman’s eldest
dragged from his bed by men
in shiny boots and white hoods
and slung from the boughs of a tree
a grainy reminder of what
grief we have never digested
and the tree itself still twisted
and misshap en a century later
as if despite the southern sun
fire still burns brightly at its roots