Waking Past Midnight collects elements of the rough South and life as a teenager on the Delta, tinged with threat and violence. In my late teens a pewter flask Rode my hip and I tucked in my right boot An eight-inch blade crafted in dimpled bone. I didn't court trouble, but knew cemeteries Were full of coffins, their rubber gaskets Rotting in the August humidity.

In Greenwood, Mississippi, my maternal Grandfather primed his rage with bonded Whiskey. He loved to roll the bones, to shoot The jive with dock-hands behind the Quinn Drug Co. A blue .38 riding his hip, he passed The collection plate odd Sundays, blackjack Tucked in his breast pocket. Some devout Church-goer whispered how a white hood And sheet haunted his bedroom closet.