Blue-Tail Fly

Private Smith’s Primer

62 Private Smith’s Primer Early 1864/1874, the 54th Massachusetts (Colored) Regiment Aa—is for the apples that clean the teeth after a crunch; A is for the arms we carry—a shovel for the earthen works, a ladle for dipping up the gruel, a hammer for putting up winter quarters; for the arms we lost and may no longer use to wrap ’round the dying, or raise a hand to comfort our blue breasts; A is for the air we all draw, fair, nobody gets more than another; A is for the awful truth—10 dollars to their 13, though should a musket break our lines, our bodies will break as well; A is for the ash that fills the air with the stench of liver, throat, a string of guts like German sausages set a-sizzle, a-flame. Bb—is for the bees that killed that drummer boy when he stepped into a bush full of them—buzzing—buzzing—bit into his legs that swelled huge as melons; B is for the blood that fills our mouths before battle, after battle; B is for the bush of her hair, the hair we dream and smell loosed from its tight plaits—black bolls pushing out bountiful—a halo we pull toward our bosoms; B is for the blood smell of a young wife left waiting among the cobs; for the blood that soaks the bandages after a leg is freed from its source, for the blood that collects under the ribs and clots in the knee when we run ahead, barreling forward—Forward brothers! Cc—is for the cat I know Major ______ found under his bunk, fat with kittens, it crawled in seeking a warm place; C is for the coats we need, the cold cruel as a leather crop; C is for the candy of a woman’s tongue—hard lick from a brown mouth; C is for the canteen, water cooling the battle thirst, and the burn in the groin where the cloth rubs constantly against a man’s sack; C is for the cavern of shades— the valleys and trenches where Satan’s teeth claim this human flesh, searching, My Lord, for a soul within. ...