after / for Billie Holiday
If I shake a body down off a death-swole bough
wet with a residuum of lung-wind & song
one of us still gon live & breathe anyway, hallelujah.
If I untie the bulge & twist of once- grin & thick brow,
I’ll whisk the black limbs in a silk slip & poke out their hips like prongs.
If I shake my body down off a death-swole bough,
sip from the tit of a gin bottle, get a sorry shit to go down south
& wipe my water clean off his maw, send him tip dry waggin’ along,
one of us still gon live & breathe anyway, hallelujah.
If I squawk like a deranged ocean with my big black mouth,
Ain’t nobody business if I do & ain’t nothin but God can get me gone!
If I shake your body down off a death-swole bough
rusted in the blood of our priors & I ask this tree about
the spill—the way we water its green within our livin’ songs,
one of us still gon live & breathe anyway, hallelujah.
Spread on me like heat when nobody do—can’t nobody say how
to save a lady like me off a tree’s organ playing a mourning song.
If I shake this body down off a death-swole bough,
one of us still gon live & breathe anyway, hallelujah.
