"When Michel'le did the splits after just one wine cooler"

"When Michel'le did the splits after just one wine cooler"

A Poem by h d e rushin

it doesn't matter now, the record. James Brown, I think,
or Rick James before he started 'using'. Like
it really doesn't matter the direction the wind comes in a tornado in Tennessee.
Or that mice could probably be tolerated if they didn't run. i
was grown, sitting down staring at chitlin's being devoured
by a man whose leg had been cut off at the knee. "It's my 'sugar'
and not yours', he would say. We nodded. My mother
was a cub scout leader. Wore a beige skirt and a blue, fitted blouse
with multi patches and buttons to signify that she held, at one time,
this great power. And that her valor and heroism, in the face of great
obstacles, had to be admired. Dad would always smack her on her fanny
when she strode by which made her frown. You
know that frown you make when you want to be loved hard so bad
that your voice changes pitch and you halfheartedly slap at the ghost's hand
as if slapping at it might make him cry out? To survive as humans we have to
be insufferable savages. Narrating out from beneath the cover of our
Negro-ness the meridian, that time after sundown
when it's actually ok to hike up your beige skirt and put on some blues. Pretend
this slang with me: from nomad to hangman, from loop to anything non-refrigerated;
when the red moon signals the time to be touched, you go limp. Where my room was,
which wasn't really a room but a hallway before the giant wooden door
painted red that you had to push hard to close
and hurt your thump to twist the dead-bolt-lock, is a lesson, I guess. That touching is
somehow believing. That to survive one has to lock your comfort down beneath the giants feet.
Because there is no nonuple; no more nine of anything when one
analogy is enough. 

© 2024 h d e rushin


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Daz
Interesting read. I'm saving this one in my library.

Posted 6 Months Ago



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Added on June 20, 2024
Last Updated on June 20, 2024

Author

h d e rushin
h d e rushin

detroit, MI



About
black american poet living in detroit. more..

Writing
Short- Short-

A Poem by h d e rushin