Sweetgum and Lightning

Abstract

Intro -- Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Dedication -- Language beside the language -- Norphenia's Lament -- Note from Norphenia: Everything's Out in the Open -- Lunch Menu: Summer 1977 -- Pie & -- Pap Marbury's Daughter -- Hula Hoop Children -- Pink Chenille -- XI -- Manners Tilt Country -- Hummer of Anyone Decisive: 1915-1990 -- The Late Mrs. Clarence Jackson, Sr. Speaks to Her Grandson in a Dream on a Ferry from Dover to Calais -- Fastened to Roots, Love & -- Story: Mother Recalls a Ten-Pound Storm -- Domesticoustics -- Lord, Have Mercy: Don't Go to Hell Cramped Up -- Bumble o' Names -- After Ben Webster's 1959 Rendition of "Time After Time" -- Tanqueray #3 -- To a Cousin on His Forty-Sixth -- Hot Metal Cools Slowly into Law -- Response to Miss Eady's Every-Sunday Question, "How are you?" -- Elegy for Sabena -- Military Sexual Trauma: (MST) Per the Department of Veterans Affairs -- Bird Alone -- Day Dream -- 2 June 2001: Before What Happened, Miss Simone? -- Septembers Ago: America Behaving -- Without You, Very Well -- Cedarwood & -- Taurean Cuss -- Carnal in a Time of PrEP -- Complexion -- Heave -- Wind-Blown Plums -- My Father Liked Me & -- Loved My Mother: The Last Tension & -- Say-so with Scent -- Kamasi, Muscadet, & -- Mary Lou Williams -- Identified by Fingerprint -- Brand-New Sheets -- What can I do with this feeling? -- Sheep Headed to a Bad Market -- Oaken in the Midst: Bleak Update to Mr. Baldwin -- Aphorism -- "Think": after Curtis Mayfield -- The Music That Learns Us -- At Le Diplomate -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- About the Author.