Swing Low

Swing Low

Swing Low

We aren’t the solid men.
       We bend like the number seven.
Dig at corners, eat cobwebs, we
      are barefoot and bare-legged.
      We hang like leaves in autumn.

We aren’t the stolid men.
      We scribble in familiar ink
about sunfalls and night. We
      see the white in the sky, and sigh.
      We lie with penciled grins.

We aren’t the men, any men.
      We rip at the neck and wonder why
while rattlers roll in. Bent
      as a number, crooked, sundered,
      we aren’t the idle lightning

if black thunder.