Alligator Blood

Drinking a cup of alligator blood
Tastes like the heads & feet we’d see
For sale at the local pawn
We’d make necklaces out of

I’d wear them round my neck
I’m a sucker for the love of the flesh
All things rancid and delicate
But the smell in the summer heat
It still gets to me

Knee-deep in the poacher’s dream
He dragged that thing out back and he
Hung it upside down & slit its belly open
And then he let it bleed out
He held my head & made me watch
Filled my mouth up with its blood and said
Grow up weak or grow up tough

Playing in the swamp of alligator blood
Behind our house in the marshy lawn
He’d always hold my head
Under the water a little too long

Cuz he wanted me to be all guts, no glory
All survivor, no guilt, he said
But he calls me his crocodile tears
While I’m chained up to the bed

When I was done wiped my mouth on his sleeve
I fucked the soul of the south, but it crucified me