The bus station’s Lost and Found department does not have my coat.
I ask the woman at the desk if perhaps it was overlooked,
tell her it is vintage, a Greatcoat, of Melton wool—
grey-brown, with empty epaulets. It has stains and smells
of cigarette smoke, fried onions, spilled whiskey.
It was my father’s. I only wear it on coldest days.
If found, I caution it be handled with care, as regrets live
in the sleeves, run endlessly back and forth in dark tunnels
between cuff and shoulder, often leap into chest pockets,
to rest near the heart.
I tell her the coat is heavy, at least ten pounds, a lot of weight
for a daughter to carry, though I am big-boned and used to burdens.
It can also be recognized by the misgivings
caught in the hem, which snare sharp heels, cause trips,
back-wrenching falls. Or by its scratchy throat-latch,
that when buttoned attempts a chokehold, leaves you gasping.
The woman interrupts, assures me my coat is not there, but maybe
I can purchase another one, next door where all unclaimed items are for sale.
Here, I discover lots of coats, but also baby bottles,
bibles, cans of cat food, ballerina shoes, an artificial leg,
and so many black umbrellas, their closed selves standing
against the back wall in a long line of grief.
There is a table of discounted Christmas things. A glittery snow globe
holds my eye. I pick it up for a closer view, find a fairytale scene
inside the dome – tidy little home, candles burning in every window,
winter-bundled family outside, pointing at blood-red birds in the evergreens.
are the sure ones among winter-worn crowds
buying bags of vegetable seeds
at Green Valley Farm Supply.
They were the boys who carried rabbit
feet deep down in their pockets;
avoided black cats and sidewalk cracks;
deciphered red skies, owl cries, the changeling yellow moon.
They became the men
who made new brides, old wives too soon.
My father was one.
He laid a knife blade
under her bed to cut the pain as I was born—
he didn’t hold her hand;
pricked my sister’s pinkie, dripped blood
on a corn kernel, fed it to our black hen—
her fever raged all the same;
planted even though mama said
it was too late to sow in the corn-sucked soil—
the baby beans died with the withered vines;
cut his greasy hair, hid it in a sourwood knot,
chest-high to stop his wheezing lungs—
his harmonica silent since.
He is the old man I see now in long evening shadows
throwing salt over his left shoulder,
trying to blind the devil’s right eye.
There ain’t no signs to help you find Shondra’s Cook Shack.
You either got to know where you’re going, or stumble up on it
trying a shortcut to Myrtle Beach. The only thing I can tell you
about getting there is that it’s east of I-95, out a little dirt lane,
just past a Carolina crossroads of tobacco and cotton.
Once a month Shondra has Soul Food Sunday, and the locals—
octaves of black and white – sit together at long tables, easy as piano keys.
They butter cornbread, sop up crowder peas, shake hot sauce
on turkey wings, swig down sweet iced tea. Their talk of family, weather,
the rising price of gasoline—the simple harmony of a well-worn hymn.
Tourists show up, tell Shondra they are there for the cultural experience,
as if declaring to a customs agent their reason for foreign travel.
They eat heaped helpings of pan-fried chicken, pulled pork,
pickled okra, slow-cooked collards. Slurp down steamy bowls
of pintos with ham hock, ox tail stew.
Others come too, like the loud man from Raleigh, who won’t shut up
Talking about how it was some of his family who first owned
the old plantation house still standing down the road a-ways.
Shondra goes to take his order. He asks about the special of the day.
She tells him chitlins.
He wrinkles up an antebellum nose, locks eyes with hers,
says, me and my family, we don’t eat them things. You people can keep ‘em.
Shondra pauses, just for a second or two, then pours his coffee,
scalding, bitey, long-simmered coffee, that overruns the cup,
spreads out across the table.
It’s another night of leftovers—soup beans,
cornbread, a dab of mashed potatoes. I make
a tater cake—to jazz things up a bit;
mix the potatoes with a couple spoons
of self-rising flour, a little black pepper,
work up a dough, shape a patty,
slide it into a hot oiled skillet.
It goes uncomplaining, proud.
I flip the cake to brown the other side,
then back again. That’s when I see
the fried face of Jesus—
his eyes full-up with bacon grease.
I know that man has a habit
of showing up in odd places,
but he shows up in my house?
In my kitchen?
In a fried-up tater cake?
I put him on a plate, blot him
off best I can. Let him cool, rest,
then take pictures—lots of them. The selfies
come out blurry, ‘cause my hands shake.
I ain’t never been close to Jesus.
What to do? Not about to eat him.
Sell him? I sure could use the cash.
Think I remember a grilled-cheese-Jesus
brought big bucks on Ebay, but making money
off him don’t seem quite right.
So, I just keep him. Stick him in the fridge.
After a week he grows green blobs on his forehead,
black fuzzy stuff around his beard.
He looks more like some rowdy pirate now—
not Jesus.
Outside, hungry crows hang around the house,
beg for scraps. I decide right then
to put him out for them. One crow comes
down from the trees to inspect—
pecks at his eyes,
calls in the tribe. Their many
sharp beaks tear him to pieces in minutes,
throats quivering with each swallowed bite.
What better way to ascend toward heaven
than in the belly of a bird?
Suzette Clark Bradshaw, from western North Carolina, is a self-taught poet and sculptress. Her poems have appeared in Dead Mule, Branches, Women Speak, and more.
Images of the cosmos from Levi Walter Yaggy’s Geographical Study (1887.) [via The Public Domain Review, https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/yaggy-geographical-maps/]
