Khyla Bussey
My stomach had a belch full of negro tugging at my tongue
With a story to tell from then, for now
I freed ‘em with the breath of my clarinet
The piano dissed the noise and would not play with me
So my womb begat a cornet I held my breath
Until the negro came stratching at my chest to wail
I freed ‘em in all that rush of air next to a bleeding saxophone
The negro suspended from my torso snapping
Swinging to buddy’s foot drum divorcing big bands
Playing in my socks and the club’s real dark
I freed ‘em in my fingers pushing speed transforming my instrument
Into a negro bible I’m reading blind stitching buried melodies
A bow to the negro howling inside me I freed ‘em, told that piano fuck you
I’m talking back writing reggae on the curb of some street in Beverly Hills
I freed ‘em from the ground jizz jazz jizz jazz lick my lips smooth
Like the blues I put my body into a trombone oh, how my negro sings
Like burdened breath becoming a trumpets hymn my proof of God
Abandoned war drums and the liturgy of Chicago nightclubs
Like I’m scavenging the loop of ground and air to hear myself in whistled
Wind hugged and held my pitched lungs bloomed from a negro departed
Like a graveyards’ living my body houses more than myself
Like ain’t no where for the living to rest but in the dust out the mud
Khyla Bussey is a graduating senior in Weinberg studying creative writing, psychology and Black studies.
