Chorus Read Online Free PDF Page B

heart
    with language
    so lavishly violent
    that you will curse me for coming
    yet curse me for going
    your crying and your moaning
    will share the same sound
    i am the storm
    that will make your sunny days unbearable
    but when the clouds begin to hug and swell
    and push black kisses into each other
    when the white and airy
    becomes dark and full
    you will know im in the mouth of the horizon
    and she will breathe me thundering across your heaven
    all good reason
    says seek shelter
    but you will invariably find yourself
    running into a open field
    the wind
    shooting under your skirt
    a furious sky in your hair
    goosebumps on your thighs
    your mouth open to catch the rain
    that smacks your face
    your tear ing eyes
    towards heaven
    waiting for me to send down
    my most gorgeous disaster
    my most frightening lovely
    for which you have spent your sunny days supplicating
    woe to you, God has answered your prayer

34
    â€œWe need a doctor in the ICU, description elderly couple, 1 suffering from a shivering equinox
    The other bad case of eclipse”
    Momma “We didn’t hang their ghost out long enough to dry” washboard, clothes line
    It’s always hard wringing the bones out of a spirit
    Some days, I fold my throat; pack it in the truck of a black hearse cramped
    Middle passage cruise liner, hopscotch down
    Route 81, countryside hums like midnight , the air thick with the history of me
    Here I’m all white picket fence and picket sign
    â€œCheck their vitals”
    My great-grandparents used to bathe in onyx, bore last names delicate as cotton
    â€œGarner” with an ER like sirens, gurneys or an
    Eerie house sculpted from the pulse of one womb
    The smell of a praying skillet playing jacks with a pot of grits
    Back burner like welts, Church on Sunday morning, in a town
    That tastes like nooses, winters fever porch swing backyard hammock
    Fist full of rice, jumped the broom, segregated blood waiting on the other side
    â€œLet’s put him over here, lift”
    â€œBoy this contraption can’t hold me long, what’s my superhero name iron lung”
    Marlboro lights and silence is all I know of my great grandfather
    Worked the coal mines, called him big O for Otis, godly hands, grip
    Like a bear trap shake Christ out of you,
    Earthly man, never able to crack the husk of him
    Crucified footprints, dirt roads burning U-Hauls
    The clan moved in next door
    â€œWe’re going to have to run more tests”
    â€œCome rub gram grams feet, massage a few decades from my steps”
    My great-grandmother’s name was Esther
    All apron and foxhound had a bite like boycott, smiled like pistol whips
    2 green thumbs patch of land, her eyes two dilating ashtrays
    Ribcage furnished like a western salon, bar fight laughter
    Protest the moonshine, this is a sit-in
    â€œNot to be the bearer of bad news, but we found something, no cause for alarm with treatment
    You can see 6 more months”
    I’m a shade of flatline
    (cough)
    â€œDon’t smoke cigarettes, son “
    Otis died crying crickets in his chest, crooked cops place a handcuff
    Over a heartbeat this is what you call cardiac arrest
    Cells were never meant to split this way
    â€œI know this is hard, one by one you can go in and say your last words”
    Poppa, hold me in your arms like a rigid mountain peak
    â€œShhhhh don’t tear, boy, I’ve been breathing like a steel mill all my days, ’bout time I retire”
    Momma, don’t leave, “Child, watch my crops, scare the Jim crows”
    see their souls rising; I take my palms to try shoving their childhoods back into their bones
    This is my defibrillator to the sky all that
    Thunder clap!!
    â€œNo more bullets on hotel balconies
    No fire hose baptisms
    â€œThey’re not responding”
    Pink ribbons, crumbling Saint Jude, heart-shaped obituaries
    â€œI told you about my Jesus
    Look heaven, freedom’s waltzing across that labyrinth dance