Have you ever seen a fat man hanging from a tree?
like a pendant suspended
from the throat of a wrinkled old woman?
Have you ever seen a skinny man hauled up
in front of his burning shop?
the plate glass shattered where he used to look out
at the magnolia blossoms in spring?
It gets hot in June in Tulsa. If you leave a skinny man
strung up a few days, you get a fat man
hanging like strange fruit in the devil's grove.
______
for Dverse Poetics: Getting hooked on opening lines.
Music: Nina Simone Strange Fruit