Untelling

          Shuck /SHək/ noun 
                  1. a person or thing regarded as worthless or contemptible. 
                  2. cause (someone) to believe something that is not true; fool or tease. 

          Wight /wīt/noun         
                  1. a person of a specified kind, especially one regarded as unfortunate. 
                  2. a spirit, ghost, or other supernatural being. 
                  3. “in the hours between dawns / looking inward and outward / at once before 

     and after / seeking a now that can breed / futures…” – Audre Lorde, “A Litany For Survival” 

Sometimes the inside of the bean will come right out to greet you like a friend. 
You find yourself scrambling to catch up to such unexpected amity, 
young and tender, their rubbery skins foster in the palm like an oily gift. 
Already used to being born again in fractured snap, interim 
ready to root against the world’s concrete if necessary. 

Sometimes black eyed peas grow inside bruised purple hulls. 
Granny snaps boysenberry plump necks and sings “Thoses’ns are the sweetest.” 
“But are they lucky?” you might ask her fingers, yet no one speaks on it. 
Watch them pinch the trellis walls like hungry spiders. 
We were taught that anything can turn to shucky bean 
if you’re willing to watch life shrivel. 
The first dried half runners seemed happenstance, 
strung up, yet somehow tasting better tanned 
crisping on the newspaper’s boldest worries. 
Beautiful dead leather britches bathing 
rotating their toes on the terracotta skin 
of a seasoned 88’ Ford F350. 

In the darkest January, we sit together 
in the canary light of my paltry kitchen 
handfuls of husk at our feet. 
Time a metronome clicking between us. 
We are still cooed      by the snap 
meditative      breaking.      We are still 
certain about beans. 
They just might bring us back to life. 
                  “But what if we’re forgetting?” 
you say and resurrect 
the discussion with no end 
                  “…about our queer hillbilly ancestors? 
                  What about the closeted ghosts?” 
Hearsay says your name 
might have been a blessing 
to a guardian angel three generations passed. 
Lord tells it he wept 
like a baby in the back 
of every room of every 
top surgery appointment