A moment in a Mississippi juke joint:
Wilma Mae looks at John L.
his slender eyes
and taut behind, bared arms
blackberry dark with grapefruit
sized biceps, but especially
the massive slope of his head
with broad textures like the benin
bronze she didn’t consciously know about
but subconsciously gravitated toward
and those teeth shiney like
lighthouses down on the gulf coast
flashing thourhg the ink of stormy night
wilma mae looked at his feet
and the go slow grind of his hips
keeping time to the juke box
& sucked her breath in slowly, she
would have taken a seat
except she was already sitting with
her thighs pressed tightly closed
just then john l. threw his head
back and sprayed the ceiling
with the mirth of his laughter
and casually did a little dip
on the off beat of the break
in the undulating song
“god,” she thought, “that man
look like a tractor, & I feels like
a field what ain’t never been plowed…”
—kalamu ya salaam