Black Christian Mind

Moses Hogan
by Sabrina Dawkins

Sleepy-eyed at the dashboard
of a smooth dark mass
that had, perhaps,
at one time, been whipped
‘til skin rose to lessen the
distance the weapon traveled—
smart skin.

A choral convention is no place
for the living dead, I thought.
The words that waltzed
to fruition from this curious
shape planted before hundreds
were like the chants
of a déjà vu haunting
the awakened
mind.

The origami collar must have hidden
inhaled flesh in a deep pattern:
smiling dark rope burns below the chin.
Under suit buttons were, maybe,
the depressed circular patterns
of smoke-outlined song:
‘Round da fiel’ I toil,
in dis heaveh mordal coil.

Limb spasms conducted
from the urgency of betrayed, burning flesh.
And paradox really did the rest.
For a spiritual is what a spiritual awaits.
And no arrangement of reincarnated sound,
its beat the rhythm of rod-inspired labor,
will make Moses Hogan renew the lease.
A Negro Soul won’t stay
in slowly rotting meat.