is one of the things men like Junior Tucker 
and Johnny Belcher call them, shoving a Smith 
& Wesson .38 into coat-pocket dark just in case.
Every step, another coward traces gun metal in the
east-Kentucky dim on a dirt road past Goose Creek.
Toward a still hill-dwellers built because they didn’t 
fully appreciate the aftertaste of store-bought liquor.

A waxing gibbous crescent trots behind the clouds,
the white-moonglow blanking then shining again.
More than enough light to be seen early enough
not to be shot dead on approach then left to rot.
Nevertheless, in Letcher County, springtime 
is as good a time as any to die. He calls out
before emerging from a stand of tulip poplar—
fiddle tree, bearing in mind the gift of heartwood
hillfolk rescue for the making of musical instruments. 

The only music tonight is the wind dispersing fire-and-
falling-water noises. The Honorable George Washington 
owned 123 slaves the day he died, Thomas Jefferson 130—
what can I tell you? They argue the best hog-killing weather,
best engines. Best hypothetical blowjob from a White woman.
The subject of the unhappy history of Blacks doesn’t come up, 
only a price for a jar of homebrew. They negotiate in moonlight
as wheat-seed bleached white as Mary Ellen Bentley’s blond hair.
Jean Harlow movie-star hair. He can slaughter a Potter at any time.

One too many to choose from for anything like a fair fight wherein 
not every swinging dick who wears the family name Potter jumps in.
He hands over a twenty-dollar-bill with Washington on it. The bill
is from the 1920’s and reads In Gold Coin. Earl Potter pockets it.
Potters don’t say No to an offering of good Yankee legal tender.
Earl’s green eyes follow him through upswelling flames from 
the fire and he scents his own stale sweat upon rising to go.