Memphis Resurrection
Who died and made you Elvis?
—Bumper sticker
The big rock by my door
is a plaster prop, after
all. I’m back to hear
screams for what I can’t
do, couldn’t do forty
years ago. Awkward
pelvic thrusts fooled
the camera and virgins,
but I have no more fish-
fry tunes left to dress
up on brand new plates.
This time around,
I spend all day singing
cracked Mississippi
homilies. Why
did I want to live
forever in the first place?
Salvation felt better dead,
floating home free
while my bones, secret
and brown, mingle
with old dirt.
Copyright Credit: Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, “Memphis Resurrection” from The Gospel of Barbecue. Copyright © 2000 by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers. Reprinted by permission of The Kent State University Press.
Source: The Gospel of Barbecue (2000)