United States, (contemporary)
Uncle Bubbas Funeral
- Mourners spilled into the dusty road,
- jawing snuff and cackling
- at the high-toned, Holy Ghost fuss
- being made over a Micanopy pig farmer.
- Still sleeping, Bubba looked
- mean as hot grits, ready as ever to cut
- a decent Christian any way but loose
- with his good eye.
- He weathered his black bones,
- plowing a share of earth he didn’t own,
- drank water-milk and ate molasses bread,
- pacing his packed-dirt floor.
- The spit-shined shoes and glinting silver coffin
- don’t fit. I knew what he’d have said
- about spending money
- to outfit the dead.
- You don’t take care of shoes when they worn out.
- They’ll throw good money in a dead hog’s ass,
- then be too broke to feed what they got.
About the Poet:
Natalie J. Graham, United States, (contemporary), is a poet, researcher and educator. She earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Florida, and completed her Ph.D. in American Studies at Michigan State University as a University Distinguished Fellow. Her research interests include Hip Hop Culture, Food Culture, and Identity Performance. She is a Cave Canem Fellow and currently associate professor of African American Studies at California State University, Fullerton.
Graham’s first, full-length poetry collection, Begin with a Failed Body (2017), was chosen by Kwame Dawes for the 2016 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Her poems and articles have been published in Callaloo, New England Review, Valley Voices: A Literary Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Journal of Popular Culture, Transition, and Phylon. [DES-01/22]