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 > 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.