The Laurel Review

A Found Poem, more or less

Get you a dog, girl, a little dog.

A dog don't cheat. A dog don't lie.

A dog remind you of you.

They give everthing they got,

risk it all, and love you through it.

Get you all dressed up now.

Shut that broken misused girl

you used to be--a new you.

No confusions--you get your fur,

your pearls, your diamond smile.

You boil an egg in twinset and pearls.

Your girl days are done; your daughter

days are done; your you days begun.

Nobody be your mother. You a woman

now; you your own woman.

Don't let nobody stop you

on 110th to tell you nothin, not even

how much they loved you at Carnegie Hall;

take out your pearled cigarette box

and hand them a smoke. You good at givin out

smokes. You give it all away. It stream

from you like rivers rollin to the sea:

love, song, smokes, dough. Everyone want

a piece of you. You let 'em have it. It all

you can do to keep ahold of your mink.

You so you, unattached, unbeholdin,

floatin; no one tell you when to come

or when to go or when to leave, who

to see, where to go, and you, you don't

have to listen even when they punch

you in the gut. You the woman that got

your own.

Men come and go and mostly leave you

waiting--wanting, so if some lover man

break your heart or your face, you trust

your voice, open your mouth:

you Lady Day; you not afraid

to look for love in all the places.

With or without escorts, you gettin there;

you always gettin there, except

when those exceptions when exceptional

things seem to happen that simply can't

be helped. When the music come, the song,

all is forgiven: you even forgive yourself.

Make yourself up girl, your stage demands it:

hair, face, it all a kind of armor. They lookin

for your soul in that face, painted a protection,

beautiful mask, death mask. Take a look, lookin

right at you, right through your song, crossing

over the border between you and them.

What it like Lady Day?

What it like standing up there,

singin your heart out?

Eatin your heart out.

Is nobody out there in the dark at all?

A voice got to feel its way.

Throw your pearls out there before

swines in the dark.

This song ain't a June-Moon-Croon-Tune;

it a story, this song a story

about real lives, pain and heartbreak.

You not a goddam jukebox. You sing it

when you want, like you want. You turn that room

into a church--hush, it the last song or the only song.

And you never done with that song.

It all of you, out there, givin everthing you got.