by Marlin M. Jenkins
with thanks to Brennar Goree
When she wail, your body betta
wail. She belt out Swanee
Swanee you best buckle
like a shoe, like spit-shine,
like your body channeling
that swung 4/4 and the crooked
waiting snuck into each annunciated
letter. Make your back
a horn, your wrist
a bass spinning like a pirouette;
make your body a Queen
in Waiting, too. Aretha
didn’t dump her soul out
like cracked eggs in a skillet,
like jambalaya from pot to bowl
for you to have stiff
knees, feet that can’t
roll like a rocking chair
with some stank
in the nails holding the wood
steady, though it cracks, makes
noise seeping
like nose-breath, like the inhale
between waiting for me and
praying for me, or
how I love you and
how I love you—if Aretha
even ever need to stop
to take a breath. Maybe you can’t
do right by your mamma,
how many calls away common ground
might feel, like all the soil
from here to Detroit dry
and blowing away like dust—
maybe you can’t do right by
every lover you kept
waiting, can’t do right
by everyone who’s died
without you telling them
what’s real, whatever real is—
but you can learn to do
what you can to do right
by each verse, become smooth
rumble and crumbed butter,
background and backbone, sacrifice
offering to and of yourself with her
voice become each joint.
Marlin M. Jenkins was born and raised in Detroit and currently lives in Minnesota. The author of the poetry chapbook Capable Monsters (Bull City Press, 2020) and a graduate of University of Michigan’s MFA program, his work has found homes with Indiana Review, The Rumpus, Waxwing, and Kenyon Review Online, among others. You can find him online at marlinmjenkins.com.