After Another Dialysis Treatment

Fish fry. Lent day. 
Say grace. Amen. 

Eat good. Eat lots. 
Rich laugh. Honeyed. 

Moonshine. Mud cake. 
Cookout. Kinfolks. 

Deep fried. Pig feet. 
Pig lips. Pig tails. 

Blood test. Big pills. 
Small pills. Blood stream. 

Sickhouse. No salt. 
No salt. Eat salt. 

Prick thumb. Draw blood. 
No salt. Eat salt. 

Kidneys. Blood clots. 
Put away. Ham hocks. 

Pork chops. Salt meat. 
Fatback. Pork rinds. 

No swine. Prick thumb. 
Draw blood. Glucose. 

No salt. No salt. 
Eat salt. Eat salt. 

Soul food. Sweetmeats. 
Neck bones. Cornbread. 

Grandma. Bloodline. 
Heartache. Big stroke. 

Less salt. Less pie. 
Less meat. More salt. 

Drain tubes. Filter. 
Doctor. Don’t trust . 

Treatment. Don’t go. 
Trust Lord. Fix pain. 

Hands hurt. Legs ache. 
Back pain. Stiff joints. 

Pump blood. Machine. 
Fatigue. Grandma. 

Say what? Tired baby. 
Lord took. Her pain. 

Come home. 
                    To what?

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Rodrick Minor is a visual artist, poet, and Black foodways advocate from Mississippi and Louisiana. He’s a four-time member of the Baton Rouge National Poetry Slam Team, the 2015 Baton Rouge Grand Slam Champion, and a member of the 2016 Philadelphia National Poetry Slam Team. His work has appeared in Voicemail Poems, The American Poetry Review, Knights Library Magazine, Micro Podcast, Duende, Poemhood: Our Black Revival: History, Folklore and The Black Experience: A Young Adult Poetry Anthology (Harper Collins, 2024), Callaloo, Nashville Review, and other forthcoming presses and journals. He is a Best of Net nominee, Cave Canem Fellow, Tin House Fellow, Watering Hole Fellow, Winter Tangerine Alumnus, Hurston-Wright Fellow, and BOAAT Press Fellow. He is currently an editor for Voicemail Poems. He earned an M.F.A. in poetry at Randolph College, where he was awarded the Nancy Craig Blackburn ’71 Fellowship.