Wheels of Steel

I got me two songs instead
of eyes—all swollen and blacked

out like the day after a lost fight.
Two jigsaws spinning, buzzing

the backdrop for woodshop
or emcee, bar mitzvah or afterset.

It’s Run DMC rocking without
a band, but not without me.

Two rims spinning after the car
stops. Baby, I’m the little lenses

in the bifocals if they were on pulleys.
I’m the Wizard of Oz if Oz

was a fish fry in July. Call me
Master of the Cracked Fingers.

One song spins forward, the other
back to repeat itself: Every day

I’m hustlin’. Every day I’m hustlin’.
Baby, I’m the layaway payment

on a Ferris wheel. My songs orbit
parking lots and rent parties

like the crazy lady’s eyes
when she finds out her lover man

already left. One of my songs
spins backward, while the other

plays forward like sugar mixing
in to make the grape. My songs

are the pinwheels for this parade
of moonwalks and uprocks.

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