Teahouse of the Almighty (5 page)

Here comes the train.

That's where it's going.

DRINK, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS

“Tequila is a pallid flame that passes through walls and soars over tile roofs to allay despair.”

      
—
Alvaro Mutis

Sergio was for no shit

that night. He was serving

up the blade juice, heavy-handed,

the sugary gold

sloshing over the tops

of much-thumbed tumblers.

Story was he rinsed

his glasses in gin to make sure

the germs were dead.

Well, no matter. That night

he was pinpoint focused

on laying his regulars flat

with fountains of Cuervo,

free for the time being

because he said it was.

The open mic,

an odd parade of eggshells

and desperadoes, had limped

to its usual anticlimax,

each poet duly convinced

that his lines had leapt

from the cocktail napkin,

sliced through the din,

and changed Chicago.

Now, no more

of those bare offerings,

florid lyrics of tomorrow and gray.

The doors were locked.

The
M.C.
was atilt, souvenir bras

dripped from the ceiling

and the Johns smelled like snow.

This was world enough,

a timed blathering of our sad biographies,

Playtex as décor,

and an overwrought

of fever water spewing

from the grimy hands

of an insane Mexican barkeep.

When we slowed,

choking on the bitter kick

as he poured and poured,

Serge bellowed a thick-tongued

threat:
This ain't no joke. Drink,

you motherfuckers.

He waved a sudden gun,

a clunky thing that sparked

snickers until he blasted

a hole in the ceiling and

revised our endings,

smalling our big drunken lives.

DELTATEACH

for all my mamas

delta teach me the sound

my heart makes when it

bends over backwards

to curse at its beat delta got

church stuffed in size 16,

carrying my gottahave milk,

telling me that i can make my

ownself feel good
      
just

when i'm thinking it might

take a man to make me feel

natural

delta teach me fatback,

skillet bread, hogshead,

alaga, drive me crazy with

warm grease, fatten me up

so that i can find

my second mouth

when my living be broken

delta help me find the piece

that can still shout the little bit

that can still squeeze into

a shiny thing and go downtown

where you can

sing about it, girl, sing about it,

pray hard over it, lean into it,

work with it, fry that thang up,

flip it, cut it loose, set fire

to it, turn it over, turn it out,

make it beg, go down on it,

call it sugar out loud, get wide

for it, lie to it, lie for it, lie

with it, but baby, don't let it kill you.

delta let me rub her throat

while she sing she

three-weave her fingers

while she sing she

wiggle like revelation

while she sing she

peel back my grinning

show everybody that lie

she find underneath there

she rip out the hooks

that man done left in my skin

ignores my pained wailing

bleeds
    
me

delta sponge me down with

pan water dab cheap smellgood

on my shattered shoulders

call me sista when she have to

baby when she want to

and fool most of the time

delta drive her mouth all over me

feeds me pure butter from a

teaspoon make me come like i

never have then she sing me some

aspirin she sing me edged hooch. she

ignores all those eyes. she take me

so dancing

CREATIVELY LOVED

for Raymond Wood Jr., 1994–1995

I was a foot tall, charming, tot stupid,

bump stumbling, a rumble lump of less

than future. It took me minutes to die,

my self blurring and curled like a comma

in leaving, Newport stubs damp candles

in my hair. Rayie Wood Jr., pesky shard

in the hip of the world. Why else would

you lift me above your head, slam me

to tile, lift me up again by my legs, swing

me against the closed door wicked enough

to splinter Wood, call me sugary names,

oh so sweet bastard me? But I thank you

father for the patient teaching of screech,

for drenching my one tooth in blood.

Thank you daddyman, for the alphabet

of the floorboards, thank you mother

for the live matches against me. Thank

you
SHUT
father for the ripe
THE FUCK

UP
loving in your mouth, thank you for

YOU LITTLE
the slam and the smash me

BASTARD
and for the bounce and the

rattle, for the drama of cut beginning.

How else would I learn the huge love in

red hiss kisses, the shining purpose of me?

ELEGANTLY ENDING

for Ella Fitzgerald

A lyric unravels,

spins on dizzied axis,

one syllable slinks

and becomes several.

A stark shaft of light

illuminates a never-over evolution.

Each exhalation

excites and concludes

with a slight upturn

of phrase that compromises

the hip, roots fat legs,

lends such southern heave to torso.

Mysteries thrive in the belly

and in the miraculous

of her throating,

send two errant verbs

round 'bout themselves

and into the keys

of her spine again.

It is not for us to know

her trilling suddenly

murderous and cringe

beautiful, inbound.

Her legs gone.

A lack of this elegance

is the end of evolution.

Consider the soundless hole.

Over.

SEX AND MUSIC

Imagine my disgust at discovering that I am

actually that readable and uncomplicated,

that I could find nothing in me worth noting

except one heat and two ways to release it.

Music leads to sex leads to music leads to sex.

If it wasn't for the clock of music imitating

the pulse of sexing someone, I could forego

this lapdance in my own lap. There's no need

for that sliver of ice, those chilly silver utensils,

the banshee howl, that two-way mirror,

the pliable circle of the mouth, Todd Rundgren's

Healing,
that spread-eagle, the lazy drip of any

liquid, the ritual reading of Sharon Olds, that

imprint of your urgent ass marring my wall.

I can blame you on all this, your drumbeat hip,

what writhes in your pants. I can't stop sparking

what I keep having to douse. Kiss me that deep.

Turn the air into victim with your arms.

Dance me till weeping and the beauteous burn.

MAP RAPPIN'

for John Coltrane, and forever for Bruce

I always shudder when I pray.

Mama say the Lord enters you in stages,

first like a match lit under your skin,

then like an animal biting through bone

with soft teeth. Mama say lie still

and wait for glory to consume you,

wrap its way into your map

like a lover had his finger on paradise,

knew the way with all his heart, then lost it.

I always shudder when I pray,

so your name must be a prayer.

Saying your name colors my mouth,

frees loose this river, changes my skin,

turns my spine to string. I pray all the time now.

Amen.

Try not to touch me while I tell this.

Try not to brush the thick tips of your fingers

against my throat while my throat moves

telling this story. Don't suddenly squeeze

my bare shoulder or travel your mouth

along the flat swell of my belly.

Don't bite at the hollow in my back,

whisper touch my ankles,

or match our skin like spoons.

Don't punctuate this rambling sentence

with your tongue or trace your name

on the backs of my legs,

please don't walk the question

of your breath along my thighs

or draw a map on my quivering breastbone

guiding me to you,

me to you,

me to you,

don't play me

that way

don't play me

that way

the way the saxman plays his woman,

blowing into her mouth till she cries,

allowing her no breath of her own.

Don't play me that way, baby, the way

the saxman plays his lady,

that strangling, soft murder—notes like bullets,

riffs like knives and the downbeat slapping

into her.
and she sighs.

into her.
and she cries.

into her.

and she whines like the night turning.

Let me sit here on the bar stool sipping something bitter.

Let me cross my legs,

slow

like the colored girls do,

and let me feel your eyes go there.

Let me feed on glory and grow fat.

Meanwhile, lover, let's fill this wicked church with music.

Let me lean into this story, for once,

without your mouth on me. The music a lit match

under my skin and I dance,

all legs and thunderous and heels too high,

I dance cheap perfume and black nail polish.

Sharkskin congregation, heads
pressed,

attitudes too tight, won't scream

until it gets to be too much, won't beg for mercy

until I wreck the landscape with my hips.

Bar stools filling, everybody waiting for the glory

to move through me, fill me with hosannas,

rock me with hallelujahs, to shake these bored bones.

They wait for you, supreme love, to pull me out

onto the dance floor, make me kick my heels above my head.

High heels 'bove my nappy head.

While they wait, I will dance with the saxman,

I will shimmer as he presses my keys.

Him and me boppin', we are
wicked
church.

So don't play, do not play, did you hear me tell you