Drunk on the blood

Of six generations of Texans
My lips are stained with Mad Dog
My teeth chatter
My skin crawls around me

High on southern hospitality
Comfort seeps from poverty's pores
And I don't pretend to understand
Anything as complex as dirt

Even though I know
This flavor, this grit
Of seedwheat in a summer Coke
Lightbroken air breathed
Through harvest filters --
I have been there

Scratched it onto tabletops
Puked it onto carpets
Tried to wash it off
Until I was pink and raw
As a barbed-wire newborn

Drunk on the sap
Of a family tree
I draw the poison out
Eversoslowly
Through the hollow end
Of a wheatstalk spike