Grandfather Claude, you make magic
with your divining rods, magic wands.
X-ray vision sod, pilfer Natchez silt loam—bronze sugar—,
and unsettle murky Mississippi mud
just like Mother Dear taught you.
Water witching founts where there were none.
Syphon through darkness,
illuminated only by moonshine whiskey.
Drown the sounds
of twelve
brown
babies
in the hollow
of thirsty wells.
And submerge
Grandma Juanita’s tepid smile,
for you know she forever steeps
in regret
for withdrawing from college for this.
Because white men pay for your magic,
you guffaw and brew white lightning
as loud as you please—until you can’t hear them calling you, a man old enough
for their father,
“Boy.”
What you do with an anger so hot it makes you want to kill?
You wash it down with hooch, mash it up with buttermilk and cornbread
until you can’t hear it no more.
Until they shoot and kill you one night
when you become too uppity.
No police investigation.
Just your blood streaming
from Old Highway 69
onto the 20 acres they hated you for owning.
In the Delta, regrets quarrel and quake.
They struggle and shake as if gasping for breath before simmering
in contrary heat.
Languid air cools forgotten dreams—congealed solid like scabs.
They’ll forget you were magic.
Rashad L. Givhan was born and raised in the Kansas City, Missouri, metropolitan area. Much of his writing is inspired by the countless summers he spent with his maternal grandparents in rural Southeast Arkansas. Givhan’s writing explores ancestry, family lore, and the magical lives of everyday people. His poetry has appeared in Bare Root Review, Black Magnolias, Callaloo, Confluence, Kansas City Voices, Reverie, and Rougarou.