I never cut my nails on a Sunday.
It’s country as fuck bad luck.
I don’t know where the superstition started,
all I know is it got handed on down to me.
And I took it up like Granny gospel.
In defiance of the way they rob our magic
and try to replace it with shiny truckS
that won’t even haul a load of logs.
We need the psalms and the songs
of the Papaws and the Mamaws
who loved the land and not the state.
The Granny gospel.
Like how you put a pot of coffee on
when your left palm gets to itchin’
because you know somebody’s coming.
Like how you make sure
there’s a pone of cornbread
and a pot of beans already on the stove
to fill all the hungry bellies.
The Granny gospel says
plug your jugs with red bandanas boys,
the book of Mother Jones
the holy fire of moonshine molotovs.
My palm is itching something awful
and revolution’s never all that far
from gravel roads ’round here.