but I am not so miraculous
they are running
like black bile
bruised from the nose
of the state
dripping into streets
America’s pastimes
or past -
the same shit panic dead bodies
on them now
as then
and yes,
Christ is among them.
for 37 cents worth of gas
he called me “angel”
at Wal-Mart.
I wanted to kiss
his face but not taste
his dirt.
saviors are like that
wearing the grime of
human souls on their t-shirts
thanking us anyway.
rewind.
pan in on holding tank
of Negro bodies -
make sure you see the smell
clean ugly unrested
they look
normal
like they’ve been walking this far
their whole lives
and put on these cocky sexual
bodies
and peacock hair
because they knew
we’d visit.
|
Lie down in the cot of the
“crazy lady”
the one with 17 grandkids
and holes in her face
from the sun
|
I lie down and she lay
inside me
spreads a twisting nation of
hurricaned lives
in my cervix
(where I need it most)
I let this woman
walk the halls of my body
her name is everybody
she’s not taken her meds
today
|
she was here long before the storms came:
|
a table prepared with blisters
and razors and smiling at me.
|
I will get her bottled water
she will call me “sweetheart”
just for being there.
saviors are like that:
I love her and
never want to see her again.
|
O God
everytime I say
I almost died
I am lying
I want to tell them I am
running
like boiled ointment
through the French Quarter
kicking out my legs
to rest in their windows
I am laying my body
coat-over-puddle
to dissolve the welfare
and deliver them
on my wet
back into the promise
land.
|
I would say
I Am the Angel of Wal-Mart
the Administrative Assistant
come back to tell you all
|
O God
rub me like antibiotic
on the charred skins
of my beloved
of the overdeveloped bodies
of young girls
in long red braids / of the sagging
tits of mothers
of the dark plum mouths of
brown men
the workings of tongues
that compress their language
to use it against me
I will love you all
in the doings of hands
bodies buried in hepatitis
rain
maybe making love,
squirmed among
the monster
lives of boys
and baby black girls
the decayed arms
of saviors
in borrowed clothes
all this refuge in my chest cavity
|
O God
I wish I wasn’t
lying to them
lying in
feeding off
the salvation of the beaten
running in their sleep
through chalk outlines
resting in the clean cradles
of my secondhand
gold
extract
you open your mouth and show
me your tongue
which is really a star
which I extract from
your head
because I really need omens
|
any omen worth its salt is always a star
|
the star will tell you
the treasure in Egypt
the star will promise
hunger
the star will be your
dog of famine
the star is the
eyes of the world
|
when you open your
mouth I peel
back your eyes
and other trust-
building activities
|
next, I replace each of her ears with the star
the star will not double
as cognition
or something mechanical
like love
About the author:
Mia Wright lives in Tulsa, OK, where she teaches alternative school and raises her brilliant daughter. (All daughters are brilliant, aren’t they?) She earned her MFA in Poetry from Boise State University. Please don’t hold that against her. She makes a mean macaroni and cheese.
