Robert Johnson's Redemption

I.
I worry at the Lusk crossroads after sealing
A crescent moon Devil’s deal
That lets me knife and strum these ivory frets
Better than even Charlie Patton.

II.
Come morning, I wake beside
the Sunflower River, strumming
I Believe My Time Ain’t Long
To a bone white egret.

III.
Later, a shot of Greenwood moonshine
Poison in the burl of my fist. The owner’s
Woman dancing tight to me as I sing, Squeeze my lemon
Till the juice runs down my leg.

IV.
Later still, in a shotgun-shack,
The blinds drawn, me wailing and moaning
As I give my love—my syphilis—
To another man’s wife.

V.
Behind the barn, sick
From the Devil’s strychnine blues,
I’m moaning to a moon, Bury my body down
By the highway side.

VI.
In a cotton field east of Lusk,
Vomiting, near dead, as the sweet voice
Calls, The sun’s going down,
Dark going to catch you here.

VII.
I dog dig the black Delta dirt
And bury the Devil’s knife. Above it, I start
A magnolia fire and burn the Devil’s machine head
—Six strings snapping our crescent moon deal.

VIII.
Come morn, I thumb a ride from Dockery Farm
On a breeze that’s not rising. Tell Estella, that lovely
Wife, that Robert’s a coming. And today I sing,
There ain’t no hellhounds on my trail.

All these Rifts and Eddies

Along the shore, leafless elms cast shadows—thin and long. Last winter’s flood-trash
clings to the bank—a bald tire, a dock torn in half.
She runs her fingers across a paddle and whispers, Will you marry me?

You look downriver (toward Foul Rift and its water soaked logs snared
by jutting rocks) and imagine that force snapping the canoe’s gunwales. She and you
swimming for your lives. Fingers slipping (slipping) from moss-covered rocks.

You slide the paddle into the water and push the boat, her, you, everything (everything)
toward the rift (though you want to say Yes, Yes again).
How is it possible to want to say so many things but also to not speak a word?