a poem by cynthia manick

Tapping at Mama’s Knees


On Saturdays we slept in whole-tone scales
mama side-slipping in bed to the cool
wash of sheets and Charlie Parker.
She dubbed it sick day. Our symptoms:
hemorrhaging soul patrol
bicoastal funk-edermis
and perforated jazz-endectomy.
We’d lay like a pair of black lizards
or one stuffed cottonmouth.
Belly cluster pillows
with tales of a Jackson Pullman porter
or river boat gambler
or logger from Cameroon she met in 52,
the tale always changes.
They all tickled toes like Dizzy’s
trumpet carved in gold,
made a girl scream silver amen’s
like praise all over the body.
She left behind a handful of land-
locked country boys
and salt-water negroes.
One gave her a ring and a necklace
of coins, cobalt nickel, or amethyst,
the tale always changes.
But he couldn’t stop the clinging
of saxophones and smoke
that sucked mama straight to Harlem,
curled in the hems of silk slips
and heels of toe-peeped shoes.
While a body craves light
mama wanted the dark arms of trumpeters,
watching the veins pull notes together
was like an island being born.
Even now on Saturdays when low-strings
are bent double, she calls and asks
why aren’t you married? and
what’s your favorite horn?




Cynthia Manick is a Cave Canem and Hambidge fellow. She holds a BA from Hollins University in English and Philosophy and a MFA from the New School.  Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in African American Review, Callaloo, DMQ Review, Gemini Magazine, Kweli Journal, Mythium Literary Journal, Sou’wester, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and Tidal Basin. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.