Blood Laps

Mae Baneda Jackson reigns from her throne, a crate on the side of the crossway before the feeder at S610 at S288. Her kingdom encompasses a grassy knoll in the greatest country in the world. Like Nzinga, with cinders in her eyes, She rises like the phoenix, dazed by the sunlight. She could have been. Borne and buried alive in Jasper, Texas. She vanished from Jefferson High School like a phantom. An invisible woman, the alcohol dyed her lips permanently pink, like a passionflower. Her smell was musky like passion fruit. Hair, curly like lambs wool, skin like burnished copper, shoeless, crusty toes, she embraces her box, and builds a mansion (condominium, apartment,) with dreams of something lofty, like a full meal in a restaurant and a house with a door and a yard, or maybe just a bed that didn't have nails in it. Scraps of discarded aluminum, shopping carts, rags and pieces of cardboard are found treasures. Her breakfast is from the trash of the convenience store in the gas station across the way, but she always says grace. And when you hand her a dollar or a quarter or a ten, she says thank you. If you pass her by, or roll your window up, or speed by, or never even see her, she still sings to herself, some old Supremes song, "Stop in the name of love," that her dear departed mother loved. Mae Baneda swims in a sea of gas fumes. See her at the crossway, her arms outstretched, swimming in blood.