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Porch Boppin’
by CJ Rakay
Late afternoon in the streets of the Big Easy,
walking through sheets and ripples of heat,
I passed that once stately home, the one on the corner
with the cracked wooden porch and only traces of paint,
and I watched the women hangin’ out front, holdin’ hip babies,
hummin’ homegrown jazz and singin’ old Motown, porch boppin’,
slurpin’ beef yakamien until I swear I heard bones whimper,
until the branches and their leaves smiled and shimmied–
and I couldn’t help but stop, wonder how it all seeps in,
what makes the thick of it, what has hold of those souls,
and how it is I can actually see the kind heart of it all.
Then I think, well, something has to be lovely, doesn’t it?
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