Memphis Resurrection by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

 Memphis Resurrection
BY HONOREE FANONNE JEFFERS

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.
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)

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