the cut up
For all the klingon homies
we eat wangs and throw dem bones on da ground
Shout when we want how we want holy ghost
hand out my pocket hit me three times
pigfoot and a bottle of beer we
jukejointsouthern &baptist call every brown drank
whiskey every grape drank purple and
every spade a gotdamned pa’tok we put That
on everything we love we strap
M-16s over our shoulder so you know
that we like the wutang clan ain’t nothing
to fuck wit and we laugh oh when we laugh
we laugh loud loud enough for the ancestors
to catch the rhythm and all over you
You at the next table with your breadsticks getting cold.
we run a lapclaplaydown jumpinplacescreamwheeze
all to catch that laugh and get it all the way out like all the joy
clogged up from the day let it bust through windpipes
all at once bust loose like the first bits of day
with a mouth full of sharpened teeth.
Copyright © 2022 Candace Wiley. Originally published in The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Books, 2018). Reprinted with the permission of the poet.