Me & Maya Angelou

Fate all day long.

I push start
my
thirty year
old truck
and drive
straight to
a place
I don’t know
where.

that morning:

the radio
murmured
somewhere
between my
dream and
me

‘the poet Maya Angelou is coming to town, tonight’

which I thought was months ago
the lecture cancelled
and now she comes

so I’m kicking
my fliver out of
gear
at the top
of hills
soaring down
Highway 360
downhill
to the
river

because I will run out of gas

the solid
wood desk
in the back
gets
boogered
up
sick.

sliding side to side
grating along the legs

suddenly I
swerve left
into a church
by the
river

somehow on time

I am drunk as usual

and wearing a pressed suite with my kufi

looking as ridiculous as fine wine

with hair I hadn’t washed in a week

and smelling like a carton of used smokes

the door
lady was
old and
the church was
the biggest in
town

I just walk
right thru

because Link doesn’t pay for anything
[movies, concerts, university lectures etc…]

I just walk right in.

I am a ways
into the balcony
and someone stops me.
“Sir…do you have your ticket”


I just look
them square
and start for
the door

In the
foyer
I decide
to sneak in the
other door.

the door lady,
a little older,
stops me.

How much for a stub?
75 bones I don’t have

Lucky day
she says
I don’t know
who you have
to thank for this
but someone bought you
a ticket

I am on the
second row
front and center

eyelevel
with Maya

she comes
out and lights the room
as if it was dark

and soothes out
one funny
story after
another

I am not laughing
and looking me
dead
in the eye
she says

“I don’t trust a man who doesn’t smile. Never trust a naked man who wants to loan you his clothes.”

And I tried
but even
Maya
doesn’t like
me too

like pretentious self-loathing

the free bird don’t sing

she says
a bunch of
other shit
too wise
for me

overvascularized

tainted with
a lackluster
gospel
outro

it starts to rain on the way
home
ruining
the desk

just before
I run
out of
gas