Hip-Hop Ghazal

Gotta love us brown girls, munching on fat, swinging blue hips,

decked out in shells and splashes, Lawdie, bringing them woo hips.

 

As the jukebox teases, watch my sistas throat the heartbreak,

inhaling bassline, cracking backbone and singing thru hips.

 

Like something boneless, we glide silent, seeping ‘tween floorboards,

wrapping  around  the hims, and ooh wee, clinging like glue hips.

 

Engines grinding, rotating, smoking’, gotta pull back some.

Natural minds are lost at the mere sight of ringing true hips.

 

Gotta love us girls, just struttin' down Manhattan streets

killing the menfolk with a dose of that stinging view. Hips.

 

Crying ‘bout getting old — Patricia, you need to get up off

what God gave you. Say a prayer and start slinging. Cue hips.

 

Bibliographical info

Patricia Smith “Hip-Hop Ghazal,” from Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah. Copyright © 2012 by Patricia Smith. Reprinted by permission of Coffee House Press.

Source: Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah (Coffee House Books, 2012)

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