gigs
meant absolutely nothing.
Welcome back to earth, Robert.
You always could make that piano
talk like somebody’s mama.
April Fools’ Day
They had me laid out in a white
satin casket. What the hell
went wrong, I wanted to ask.
Whose midnight-blue sedan
mowed me down, what unnameable fever
bloomed amber & colchicum
in my brain, which doctor’s scalpel
slipped? Did it happen
on a rainy Saturday, blue
Monday, Vallejo’s Thursday?
I think I was on a balcony
overlooking the whole thing.
My soul sat in a black chair
near the door, sullen
& no-mouthed. I was fifteen
in a star-riddled box,
in heaven up to my eyelids.
My skin shone like damp light,
my face was the gray of something
gone. They were all there.
My mother behind an opaque veil,
so young. My brothers huddled like stones,
my sister rocked her Shirley Temple
doll to sleep. Three fat ushers fanned
my grandmamas, used smelling salts.
All my best friends—Cowlick,
Sneaky Pete, Happy Jack, Pie Joe,
& Comedown Jones.
I could smell lavender,
a tinge of dust. Their mouths,
palms of their hands
stained with mulberries.
Daddy posed in his navy-blue suit
as doubting Thomas: some twisted
soft need in his eyes, wondering if
I was just another loss
he divided his days into.
Untitled Blues
after a photography by Yevgeni Yevtushenko
I catch myself trying
to look into the eyes
of the photo, at a black boy
behind a laughing white mask
he’s painted on. I
could’ve been that boy
years ago.
Sure, I could say
everything’s copacetic,
listen to a Buddy Bolden cornet
cry from one of those coffin-
shaped houses called
shotgun. We could
meet in Storyville,
famous for quadroons,
with drunks discussing God
around a honky-tonk piano.
We could pretend we can’t
see the kitchen help
under a cloud of steam.
Other lurid snow jobs:
night & day, the city
clothed in her see-through
French lace, as pigeons
coo like a beggar chorus
among makeshift studios
on wheels—Vieux Carré
belles having portraits painted
twenty years younger.
We could hand jive
down on Bourbon & Conti
where tap dancers hold
to their last steps,
mammy dolls frozen
in glass cages. The boy
locked inside your camera,
perhaps he’s lucky—
he knows how to steal
laughs in a place
where your skin
is your passport.
Jumping Bad Blues
I’ve played cool,
hung out with the hardest
bargains, but never copped a plea.
I’ve shot dice heads-up
with Poppa Stoppa
& helped him nail
his phenomenal luck
to the felt floor with snake eyes.
I’ve fondled my life in back rooms,
called Jim Crow out of his mansion
in Waycross, Georgia, & taught
him a lesson he’ll never forget.
Initials on Aspens
The scar tissue says
t. c. from dallas
