Clean the spittoons, boy.

    Detroit,

    Chicago,

    Atlantic City,

    Palm Beach.

Clean the spittoons.

The steam in hotel kitchens,

And the smoke in hotel lobbies,

And the slime in hotel spittoons:

Part of my life.

    Hey, boy!

    A nickel,

    A dime,

    A dollar,

Two dollars a day.

    Hey, boy!

    A nickel,

    A dime,

    A dollar,

    Two dollars

Buy shoes for the baby.

House rent to pay.

Gin on Saturday,

Church on Sunday.

    My God!

Babies and gin and church

And women and Sunday

All mixed with dimes and

Dollars and clean spittoons

And house rent to pay.

    Hey, boy!

A bright bowl of brass is beautiful to the Lord.

Bright polished brass like the cymbals

Of King David’s dancers,

Like the wine cups of Solomon.

    Hey, boy!

A clean spittoon on the altar of the Lord.

A clean bright spittoon all newly polished—

At least I can offer that.

    Com’mere, boy!

after Morgan Parker, after Wu-Tang

                      in the morning I think about money

           green horned lord of my waking

                      forest in which I stumbled toward no salvation

                                 prison made of emerald & pennies

           in my wallet I keep anxiety & a condom

I used to sell my body but now my blood spoiled

           All my favorite songs tell me to get money

                                              I’d rob a bank but I’m a poet

                                 I’m so broke I’m a genius

           If I was white, I’d take pictures of other pictures & sell them

I come from sharecroppers who come from slaves who do not come from kings

                                              sometimes I pay the weed man before I pay the light bill

                      sometimes is a synonym for often

I just want a grant or a fellowship or a rich white husband & I’ll be straight

           I feel most colored when I’m looking at my bank account

I feel most colored when I scream ball so hard motherfuckas wanna find me

                                 I spent one summer stealing from ragstock

If I went to jail I’d live rent-free but there is no way to avoid making white people richer

                                              A prison is a plantation made of stone & steel

           Being locked up for selling drugs = Being locked up for trying to eat

                                              a bald fade cost 20 bones now a days

                      what’s a blacker tax than blackness?

                                              what cost more than being American and poor?

                                         here is where I say reparations.

here is where I say got 20 bucks I can borrow?

           student loans are like slavery but not but with vacation days but not but police

I don’t know what it says about me when white institutions give me money

                      how much is the power ball this week?

I’mma print my own money and be my own god and live forever in a green frame

                      my grandmamma is great at saving money

           before my grandfather passed he showed me where he hid his money & his gun

                      my aunt can’t hold on to a dollar, a job, her brain

                                 I love how easy it is to be bad with money

                      don’t ask me about my taxes

                                 the b in debt is a silent black boy trapped

Editorial Assistant.  Executive Assistant. Administrative Assistant. Writing
Center Director.  Writing Teacher. Receptionist.  Poetry Fellow.  Technical
Writer.  Barista.  Waitress.  Applying  for three jobs a day  doesn’t get me a
job.  I get an offer from the diner and then the diner burns down.  I flop an
interview  at the local  Subway.  I make a couple  hundred a month writing
blogs for hotels  I cannot afford.  I write a  blog about Benjamin  Franklin’s
Ghost House.  It’s a chalk  outline in the ground where his house  was torn
down.  I have a   Ghost Life.  My friends  all get jobs.  I know  because  they
each come to  the bar with a polished eye around their neck.  The eyes can
foresee  only positive  futures.  In the future,  my  friends  eat  takeout and
rescue  a dog.  They  have children  they’ve  made  on purpose  and  call  by
fashionable  names.  I try to  look into  their job-eyes,  and  the  eyes  close
their bulbous lids.  The lids make a horrible smacking sound like someone
closing their mouth to go hmmmm—then not saying what everyone knows
they  want  to say.  Was my phone  voice too  weak?  Did my neck  look too
brittle  to hold  a  full-size job-eye?  The lease  is running  out  much  faster
than my life is. Every day,  my apartment gets one-cubic-inch smaller. The
walls  get  so short  I only have  room for the bed.  I lie there and dream of
having any real job.