Chorus by Saul Williams Page B

are
    Â Â Â Â the
    music  as
    Â Â Â Â long
    Â Â Â Â as
    Â Â  You
    last
    You
    who
    think
    Â Â Â Â You
    Â Â Â Â  are
    Â Â voyaging
    Â Â  through
    the
    furrow
    Â Â  that
    widens
    Â Â Â Â  behind
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  You
    Â Â  ahead
    You
    who
    are  Now
    All
    Â Â of it
    Â Â Music
    You Are
    Â Â Â Â  the
    Â Â Â Â Music
    as
    long
    as
    You
    â€”  Last —

55
    Acoustic banging , chaotic din, envelops
    flailing grinders. Hot itchy jitterbugging
    keeps lovers mingled, naughty.
    Overwrought prancing quaintly releases sweat.
    Two unflinching voluptuous women exhale,
    yell “Zydeco!”
    Zip, yelp, explosion. Wild variations
    undermine tunes. Sizzlers really quiver,
    pushing orgasmic, narrowly missing
    love. Kalimbas jump in, harmonicas
    garble, flutes etch downbeat ,
    cool be-bop accentuates.
    Aw, but can’t dancers’ engines, fluid
    gyrating hips, ignite? Jiggy keisters
    launch mambo—nearby, ogled
    pelvis es quake . Rumba, synth-pop,
    tough undertow. Veering wobbler
    exiled. You? Zero.

56
    This is the soft middle of it , yolk-colored, as undeniable as frowning, against music, as this it becomes a girl, as this girl becomes a body, raped and murdered, becomes light, becomes a note plucked from the staves of railroad. How later, as a salesman is painting her name on every windshield on every car in the lot, in memorial, painting her name the exact colorof candlelight, a mechanic is writing the instructions on how to start a car right on its passenger door so the mechanic on the next shift will have an idea of how to start it. Because something is wrong with its engine, with its insides, like my mother’s appendix, like my brother’s bank account, like the slate-colored eyes of a homeless, skateboarder who’s talking about the Mayan calendar at the six-pack shop, with his stack of secondhand books under his arm, with his fresh tattoo bandage unraveling, because something is wrong. Wrong, like how that wo m an who stol e a knife at t he pizza shop last Saturday stabbed at her stomach and arms in the bath ro om, screami n g I have AIDS at the cops, like a psychopathic version of the owl from those old lollipop commercials: h o w m any licks do e s it take? How we’re trying to open ourselves from the outside. How we’re counting each stroke and each crack. Because there has to be a center, has to be a way inside, has to be being the last form of prayer , the viscera of desire. How desire is: the stung cup we drink from; the ology of ourselves imagined; the language of strays hiding inside the pile of trash in the work trailer beside our house, yowling all night; the pictures in frames turned upside-down throughout; and all the people you cut from them; and you, mostly naked, searching for the title to your car; how you said it was going to rain; told me there was a trick to knowing it; the rain; because you can always see the white side of the leaves; just before; the rain; you can see always see their bellies; their middles; their soft insides.

57
    you don’t feel as though the world has gone entirely mad,
    not yet. though, when you talk, the groups of women
    all have their heads nodding, wide-eyed and aloof
    as a crowd of crumb-drunk pigeons, their spastic necks say
    yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
    it’s a story they’ve told too. also, asked to keep quiet.
    you don’t think much of the childhood either, the girl-
    shaped escape routes. the engine-sized growl that carries
    your father’s hands to you, the young boys who learn from
    watching, chanting a train’s sturdy meter, hungrily
    yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
    these could be your brothers but they’re mostly men now.
    it won’t even hit you until you are long gone from that
    ex-boyfriend, the one two calamities ago , the shadows
    following you home from the subway or the