“Worst-Case Scenario” by Frank X Walker

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about flight thumbnailI open the door to the drug den
where my brothers and sister
have taken their rent, child support,
utility and food money,

promises to Mama
tattooed across my face.

I sing them their favorite lullabies,
forge their names on love letters
addressed to their children,

share one last ‘remember when’
and laugh until our stomachs hurt.

I hug and squeeze them as hard as I can,
then usher them all—dealers and users alike,
into the afterlife, with the courage
and conviction of a suicide bomber.

–Frank X Walker,
About Flight
(Accents Publishing)

dr. frank x walker thumbnailMultidisciplinary artist and Danville, Kentucky native, Frank X Walker, is the former Poet Laureate of Kentucky, and Professor in the department of English and the African American and AfricanaStudies Program at the University of Kentucky. The founding editor of Pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture is a Cave Canem Fellow, co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets, and the author of seven collections of poetry including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, winner of the 2014 NAACP Image Award for best poetry collection. The Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry recipient is the originator of the word, Affrilachia, and wholly committed to deconstructing and forging a new definition of a pluralistic Appalachia.

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