Swing Low by Rickey Laurentiis

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.