Koko Taylor
It was black out there.
The starless Alabama night
pressed against my skin,
hard like a man, steam I couldnât fathom.
I was 14. I was trouble.
My chest bulged with wrong moving
and other womenâs men lapped up my smellâ
the smell of a gun barrel
once the bullet is gone.
Fat flies, blood loony and irritated by the moon,
nibbled at my ankles and buzzed sweet Jesus
when they tasted the thick sweet oil
I rubbed in to make my legs shine.
I was 14. My hips were wide, keening.
I had lightning bolts for legs.
Wrinkled women, grateful for the sleeping sun,
shucked peas, ripped silk from corn,
rocked do-diddy rhythms on fallen porches.
Boys with earth naps screeched crave into the air
and waited for answers and somewhere
a man named J.T. or Diamond or Catfish
blew everything he had into a harp
and hollered when he found his heart,
still moist and pumping,
lying at the bottom of a shot glass.
Everybody wanted a way up and out of that town,
a town so small, such a fist of heat and no stars,
that I was able to tuck it all into my cheek
before I stood on my long brown lightning legs
and flew.
The backhand slap that stopped me was called Chicago.
I ran into the first open door
and screamed Mississippi into a microphone,
knocking out most of my teeth in the process.
The men, long cool wisps of glimmer,
fed me whiskey, dressed me red, called me baby,
laid me down in their king beds,
mapped my widening body, flowered me.
At night I swallowed their cigarette smoke,
swiveled my fat, and gave them Mississippiâ
the proper name for the growing larger,
the blue black, the heavy ankles,
the stiff store-bought auburn flip. By then,
I had to be dead to leave.
Now I sit and watch the white girls
wiggle in to ask for my signing on something.
They wait till they think my back is turned
and they laugh at the black hole of my mouth,
the spilling out, my red wig sweat-sliding.
They wonder how I stuff all this living
into lamé two sizes too gold,
laugh at how I write my name real slow.
I just tap my slingback, smile real grateful-like,
wait till they try to leave. Then I grab one of âem,
haul her back by that stringy perfumed head,
and growl what the city taught me:
You hearinâ me? You hear?
I might not have but one tooth left.
But at least
itâs gold.
walloping! magnifying of a guyâs anatomy easily
Subject line for a junk e-mail touting a âpenile enhancerâ
Emmett was all pelvis, theatrics
in lieu of heft and measure.
I threw Rich out of bed
and made him dance naked
in the hall. His spurt was ludicrous.
A.J.âs cocked to the left,
dots of Hai Karate flowering
his testes. And the bubbled one
with gut smothering the stub.
Florid dramas of the teeny weenie,
the entertainments of strut,
snug synthetic fibers, blustery spiels.
And now this little yellow pill
that grows even history huge.
And easily. Yes, and damn.
10 WAYS TO GET RAY CHARLES AND RONALD REAGAN INTO THE SAME POEM
1.
Begin with the rhythm of chapped hands traversing
the naked hips of a Raelette. Begin with the whispered
boundaries of a gone world. Forced to craft other English,
men stutter with their surfaces, jump when they touch
something raw. At birth, the cottony light of the real grew
faint until music swelled its arcing arms and claimed him.
At the very second of heaven, a history swerved close,
teased, but did not return. He said good-bye to strangers.
2.
What heaven would have him, ashed, so much of hollow,
now irritably whole? Imagine the gasping and gulping, the
sputtered queries at the sight of sunflowers and foil. Thereâs
a holy niche in hell for these harbingers of hard wisdoms,
men with this strain of jazz in them, men who have seen the
inward of women, heard colors settle, eased shameful things
into their mouths. The Last Rapture is best without his kind,
without his crazed seeing knock splintering the gilded
It was black out there.
The starless Alabama night
pressed against my skin,
hard like a man, steam I couldnât fathom.
I was 14. I was trouble.
My chest bulged with wrong moving
and other womenâs men lapped up my smellâ
the smell of a gun barrel
once the bullet is gone.
Fat flies, blood loony and irritated by the moon,
nibbled at my ankles and buzzed sweet Jesus
when they tasted the thick sweet oil
I rubbed in to make my legs shine.
I was 14. My hips were wide, keening.
I had lightning bolts for legs.
Wrinkled women, grateful for the sleeping sun,
shucked peas, ripped silk from corn,
rocked do-diddy rhythms on fallen porches.
Boys with earth naps screeched crave into the air
and waited for answers and somewhere
a man named J.T. or Diamond or Catfish
blew everything he had into a harp
and hollered when he found his heart,
still moist and pumping,
lying at the bottom of a shot glass.
Everybody wanted a way up and out of that town,
a town so small, such a fist of heat and no stars,
that I was able to tuck it all into my cheek
before I stood on my long brown lightning legs
and flew.
The backhand slap that stopped me was called Chicago.
I ran into the first open door
and screamed Mississippi into a microphone,
knocking out most of my teeth in the process.
The men, long cool wisps of glimmer,
fed me whiskey, dressed me red, called me baby,
laid me down in their king beds,
mapped my widening body, flowered me.
At night I swallowed their cigarette smoke,
swiveled my fat, and gave them Mississippiâ
the proper name for the growing larger,
the blue black, the heavy ankles,
the stiff store-bought auburn flip. By then,
I had to be dead to leave.
Now I sit and watch the white girls
wiggle in to ask for my signing on something.
They wait till they think my back is turned
and they laugh at the black hole of my mouth,
the spilling out, my red wig sweat-sliding.
They wonder how I stuff all this living
into lamé two sizes too gold,
laugh at how I write my name real slow.
I just tap my slingback, smile real grateful-like,
wait till they try to leave. Then I grab one of âem,
haul her back by that stringy perfumed head,
and growl what the city taught me:
You hearinâ me? You hear?
I might not have but one tooth left.
But at least
itâs gold.
walloping! magnifying of a guyâs anatomy easily
Subject line for a junk e-mail touting a âpenile enhancerâ
Emmett was all pelvis, theatrics
in lieu of heft and measure.
I threw Rich out of bed
and made him dance naked
in the hall. His spurt was ludicrous.
A.J.âs cocked to the left,
dots of Hai Karate flowering
his testes. And the bubbled one
with gut smothering the stub.
Florid dramas of the teeny weenie,
the entertainments of strut,
snug synthetic fibers, blustery spiels.
And now this little yellow pill
that grows even history huge.
And easily. Yes, and damn.
10 WAYS TO GET RAY CHARLES AND RONALD REAGAN INTO THE SAME POEM
1.
Begin with the rhythm of chapped hands traversing
the naked hips of a Raelette. Begin with the whispered
boundaries of a gone world. Forced to craft other English,
men stutter with their surfaces, jump when they touch
something raw. At birth, the cottony light of the real grew
faint until music swelled its arcing arms and claimed him.
At the very second of heaven, a history swerved close,
teased, but did not return. He said good-bye to strangers.
2.
What heaven would have him, ashed, so much of hollow,
now irritably whole? Imagine the gasping and gulping, the
sputtered queries at the sight of sunflowers and foil. Thereâs
a holy niche in hell for these harbingers of hard wisdoms,
men with this strain of jazz in them, men who have seen the
inward of women, heard colors settle, eased shameful things
into their mouths. The Last Rapture is best without his kind,
without his crazed seeing knock splintering the gilded
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