Mary Lou Jones: They called her Maelu

Spit Levi Garrett

an old woman with graying eyes,
once spoke thru clouds.
her voice was crippled by stolen souls,
which she passed thru snuff laced kisses.
my similes, her words,
run green thru varicose veins,
stop just top of thigh high
where hands adorned in wrinkled skin
lay to rest.
metaphorically her laugh lines cease
where crow’s steps creep
at crease of dreams that
hide within
the fold of her lips.
she whispers
a poem which leaks
between heartbeats,
my bleeding heartaches,
our worlds connect
at fading heart lines.
our words hold hands
and I spit the piece of eternal peace
that was once she.
and she breathes her life back into me.
the warmth of her air
atop my tear stained cheeks,
flee
as I part our lips,
another speaks.
words scar the skin of another.
keloid, tat an embittered soul.
no life could remain
or sustain.
her prose falls on once deaf ears
silenced in the final breath that escapes
and lies outside my dream’s tip.
her last words like butterflies
flutter and linger,
our words hold hands
as she breathes her life
back into me..
our worlds soon merge
her story heard
I am she, and she are we
but crease in which our life lines meet
disappear and fade away
our life escapes in one puff of air
one cast aside....
in the mist of spit
a seed is sown in dry soil..
graying eyes peer thru clouds
and rain down..
a plant from which her knowledge grows..
nourishing roots of tree
that is me..
I spit the piece of eternal piece which once was she
and now is me.
I spit story thru clear eyes and clouded mind..
I spit piece of eternal piece of great grand,
her weathered fingers held
prose and poem
which she wrote in life’s deeds
the pen, illiterate
paper, could never contain
a midwife life, with story to tell,
her heart inked prose upon my soul
her unschooled words
dialectically
scrawled in wrinkle of great grand's hands
deepening the crease of my fate line
and I spit
I spit poetry
held tongue and cheek
between gum and lip,
words held until the sting
no longer burns
and I spit her flow
richly dark, like her tobacco
words cling to my lip
and I spit poetry,
like she spit Levi Garrett
bitter and sweet..