BEGET sounds less like giving and more like getting:
getting the kids straight, getting in that tail, getting that
narrow black ass.
2
As a child, I get got for getting out of hand or getting
smart. Gotta get the belt myself, gotta put it in my dad’s
firm fat fist.
3 You learn real quick to get your act together—get ready,
get small—stop all that crying while you’re getting created.
4
We got these stories we tell when we all get together,
my brothers and I, about butt whoopin’s we got, getting the
black slapped off of us.
5 I got one once for lying to my dad about writing
on the wall. They say I jumped so high I got at least four
feet off the ground and the way I screamed, Dad says
that’s how we got honest, how we got to know Jesus.
6 And we got it easy. His daddy used to get him good
with a hickory switch, a tangled up extension cord.
7 I told a friend this once, but she didn’t get it.
Kept saying I got abused, I got issues.
8 But I don’t got one place on my skin I can point to
that tells it happened. The pain washed over me like water—
a baptism.
9 That’s how we got saved.
10 Fathers been getting sons and daughters since before
God gave Moses the commandments. Great-granddad
begot Papa, Papa begot Dad, Dad begot Me.
11 When I get my Son, he’s got tears running down his face.
He’s got a look in his eyes says he don’t understand this
laying on of hands.
12 He’s only two but getting bigger. The say you gotta
get him right before someone else gets him—before he gets
himself in trouble, before he gets got in the streets.
13 And still he walks to me, holds me, calls my name,
his eyes getting wide, his whole body shaking from my
betrayal.
14 My beloved Son, in whom I’m not well pleased. I want
to save you from the world, so I give you what I got: something
to remember, something to cry about.
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