nice as a new piece
Of silk. It’s a wonder
Women don’t stick to him
Like white on rice.
It’s a fast world
Out there, honey
They go all kinda ways.
Just buried John Henry
With that old guitar
Cradled in his arms.
Over on Fourth Street
Singing ‘bout hell hounds
When he dropped dead.
Your heard ‘bout Jack,
Right? He just tilted over
In prayer meeting.
The good & the bad go
Into the same song.
How’s Hattie? She
Still uppity & half
Trying to be white?
The man went off to war
& got one of his legs
Shot off & she wanted
To divorce him for that.
Crazy as a bessy bug.
Jack wasn’t cold
In his grave before
She gone up & gave all
The insurance money
To some young pigeon
Who never hit a lick
At work in his life.
He cleaned her out & left
With Donna Faye’s girl.
Honey, hush. You don’t
Say. Her sister,
Charlene, was silly
Too. Jump into bed
With anything that wore
Pants. White, black,
Chinese, crazy, or old.
Some woman in Chicago
Hooked a blade into her.
Remember? Now don’t say
You done forgot Charlene.
Her face a little blurred
But she coming back now.
Loud & clear. With those
Real big, sad, gray eyes.
A natural-born hell raiser,
& lose as persimmon pie.
You said it, honey.
Miss High Yellow.
I heard she’s the reason
Frank shot down Otis Lee
Like a dog in The Blue
Moon. She was a blood-
Sucker. I hate to say this,
But she had Arthur
On a short leash too.
Your Arthur, Mary.
She was only a girl
When Arthur closed his eyes.
Thirteen at most.
She was doing what women do
Even then. I saw them
With my own two eyes,
& promised God Almighty
I wouldn’t mention it.
But it don’t hurt
To mention it now, not
After all these years.
Right Column
Heat lighting jumpstarts the slow
afternoon & a syncopated rainfall
peppers the tin roof like Philly Joe
Jones’ brushes reaching for a dusky
backbeat across the high hat. Rhythm
like cells multiplying … language &
notes made flesh. Accents & stresses,
almost sexual. Pleasure’s knot; to wrestle
the mind down to unrelenting white space,
to fill each room with spring’s contagious
changes. Words & music. “Ruby, My Dear”
turned down on the cassette payer,
pulsates underneath rustic voices
waltzing out the kitchen—my grandmama
& an old friend of hers from childhood
talking B-flat blues. Time & space,
painful notes, the whole thing wrung
out of silence. Changes. Caesuras.
Nina Simone’s down-home cry echoes
theirs—Mister Backlash, Mister Backlash—
as a southern breeze herds wild, blood-
red
