For Mary Wells
Stiff wigs, in cool but impossible shades
of strawberry and sienna, all whipped
into silky flips her own flat naps could
never manage—the night hair different
from the day hair, the going out hair,
the staying-in hair, Friday’s hair higher
and way redder than Monday’s—all these
wigs, 100% syn-the-tic, thank you, lined
up on snowy Styrofoam heads and paid
for with her own money, what could be
slicker than that? No lovesick player
flopped his wallet open for those crowns.
So she wasn’t Diana. Who wanted to be
all skeleton and whisper, hips like oil?
Didn’t need no hussies slinking in the
backdrop giving more throat, boosting
her rhythm. So what if her first album
cover drew her pimpled, bloat-cheeked,
Sunday hair skewed? She roared gospel
in those naked songs, took Berry’s little
ballads and made men squirm on their
barstools. They spun her in the dark.
Wasn’t she the alley grunt, the lyric played low?
Didn’t people she never met run up to try
and own her tired shoulders, shouting Mary!
like they were calling on the mama of Jesus?
And everywhere she dared to step,
Detroit devilment bubbling beneath sequins
that can’t help but pop under the pressure
black butts provide, every time she dropped
’round to paint the town brown, neon lights
slammed on, cameras clicked like air kisses,
and pretty soon somebody said Girl you know
you just gotta sing us something and even though
she didn’t have to do a damned thing but be
black, have soul, and die, she’d puck those lips
just so, like she didn’t know how damn electric
it all was, and every word landed torn and soft,
like a slap from somebody who loves you.