POOL PLAYERS
I. August 28, 1955
Sunday is now Monday after the first
and last time a nigga will ever step
foot on this side of the road. We struggled
far too long before I realized I wouldn’t
live to tell the southside how what Billie
sang is real. How it’s as bad here as mama
said it would be. I wish I listened, that
she’d taught me to stay cool like
my country kin in Money, Mississippi. Where
the air’s thick as manila rope, and our
bodies sway purple in cypress trees. I
should’ve known how to fly. But at school, I’d
sit next to white girls who’ll have
the privilege to grow up and lie about
boys who wouldn’t think to whistle, or look
their way. Left at the bottom of the Tallahatchie
for three days, I am water damaged flesh,
and a ring engraved with my initials. Fitted
for a casket long before a first kiss, I learned
how mama couldn’t have taught me
to stay cool cuz it’s hot wherever we be,
the sun lurks and burns through our skin
just the same.
Fourteen seemed like lots of years
lived til even I couldn’t tell if I was
Emmett, or not.
POOL PLAYERS
II. September 24, 2021
It is Wednesday for thirty days in a row
and my mother weeps enough tears to fill
two hundred and seventy-three miles of
the Illinois River that sings songs I thought
only the Atlantic knew. Since I was a little
boy, I’ve known how to swim, but when
we’re killed, they bury us along with
the truth. Some of us have no one
who thinks twice before creating a legacy
of candle smoke and puddles of gin, or
whatever niggas pourin’ up on pavements
outta us. We don’t blame ‘em for when, or
how they grieve. We just pray they sing
our names jazz, as our loved ones sway
down streets like purple in cypress
trees. By June, I wonder if my mother
will have stopped weeping
two hundred and seventy-three miles
of the Illinois River, if she’ll know how
I died.
Twenty-three seemed like lots of years
lived til I forgot my name
Jelani Day, gone too soon.