Called

Frank Stanford

There was only a penny
on the arm of our phonograph
but it played like a hundred dollars

Pretty soon we're all going to die
Salamanca was fond of saying
to me as he read the Bible in the outhouse

Now he's got me saying the same
words The moon mosquitoes and darkness
were in his ear
He'd have dreams

A naked white woman washing his feet
The sparrows on his eye

There were only a few chapters
left in the book He listened
to the blues and drank
He sucked ice

He yodeled at old death
when he was wanting some shuteye

Nobody on earth is like me
he'd wake up speaking
just like he was still asleep

Salamanca said he had the sparrows
on his eye
He said I am like the piano
they threw off the bridge
the snakebed and the shadetree
I'm something

He talked to death like a man
fishing in his hole
I'm something not everybody wants
to believe
He'd say sipping on whiskey I stole for him

He told death to suck hind teat

Salamanca would kick me out of bed
and holler at me

Ginny Stanford